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MY IRISH YEAR 



PADRAIG GOLUM 



WITH 15 ILLUSTRATIONS 



NEW YORK 

JAMES POTT & GO. 



350 
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Copyi'ight in the British Empire of Mills & Boon, Ltd., London. 



TO 

ONE OF THE HIGH MILESIAN RACE 

FOR KINDRED, COURAGE, COMRADESHIP 

THIS MUCH OF ME 



INTRODUCTION 

" My Irish Year " is not representative of the whole 
of Ireland : Catholic and Peasant Ireland only is 
shown, and this Catholic and Peasant Ireland is 
localised in a strip of country crossing the Midlands 
to the West. There is nothing of historic Munster in 
these pages ; nothing of East and South Leinster ; 
nothing of Ulster — neither of the Ulster of the Presby- 
terian farmers so ably described in Mr Robert Ljmd's 
" Home Life in Ireland," nor the wider Ulster that 
is Catholic and Gaelic. The cities, Dublin, Belfast, 
and Cork, each with its distinctive life and atmosphere, 
have not been brought into the book. 

Within the locality described the author has been 
too much inclined, perhaps, to view the life in its 
agrarian aspect. The current set up by the GaeUc 
League, affecting the revival of language, music, 
dances, and games, has not been given due apprecia- 
tion, and the life — or rather the form of decay — that 



vm MY IRISH YEAR 

exists in the country towns has not been fully shown. 
Still, if not representative of the whole of Ireland, 
" My Irish Year " is representative of a great part 
of Ireland. The life described may stand for the 
life of the Catholic peasantry. And the CathoHc 
peasantry are not merely the bulk of the Irish popula- 
tion ; they are, roughly speaking, the historic Irish 
nation. 

Besides its geographical boundary, some readers 
may be aware of another boundary in this book. 
That boundary is in the writer's mind : his tradition 
puts him definitely with the peasant, the nationalist, 
and the Irish Catholic. 

" My Irish Year " is composed of studies made while 
living among the people of the Midlands and the 
West. Some of these studies were pubhshed in 
The Manchester Guardian and The Nation, and 
the author returns thanks to the editors of these 
journals for permission to republish. Acknowledg- 
ments are also due to Messrs Chatto & Windus and 
to the Cuala Press, Dundrum — to Messrs Chatto & 
Windus for permission to include the " Horned 
Women," a story given in Lady Wilde's " Ancient 



INTRODUCTION ix 

Legends of Ireland," and to the Cuala Press, Dun- 
drum, for leave to publish the old ballad, " Cavan 
Races." To Miss Beatrice Elvery, to Myra K. 
Hughes, to A. E., to Mr Paul Henry, to Mr Wm. 
MacBride, to Mr E. A. Morrows and to Mr Jack 
B. Yeats the author returns thanks for permis- 
sion to reproduce their beautiful and distinctive 
pictures. 



CONTENTS 

PAET I 
THE MIDLANDS 

CHAPTER I 

A SURVEY 

CHAPTER II 



RURAL ECONOMY 



PAGE 

3 



14 



CHAPTER III 

LETTER TO AN IRISH FARMER ..... 41 

CHAPTER IV 

SURVIVING MYTH AND CUSTOM ..... 48 

CHAPTER V 

RELIGION IN POPULAR POETRY 59 

CHAPTER VI 

SONGS, STORIES, AND CONVERSATIONS . . . . 65 

CHAPTER VII 

A MARRIAGE 97 

CHAPTER VIII 

THE PEASANT PROPRIETOR 108 



xii MY IRISH YEAR 

CHAPTER IX 

PAGE 

AN AGRARIAN PRIEST 113 

CHAPTER X 

THE COUNTRY SCHOOLMASTER . . . . .118 

CHAPTER XI 

A GRAZIER 123 

CHAPTER XII 

THE COUNTRY TRADER 126 

PART II 
ABROAD IN BREFFNI 131 

PART III 
THE WEST— SKETCHES 205 

PART IV 
THE CRISIS m IRELAND 269 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



Irish Parliament House, College Green 

The Bog 

The Zither-Player 

The Agricultural College, Ballyhaise 
The New College of Science, Dublin 
The Horn Blowers .... 
A Madonna op the West . 
An Irish Folk-Tale .... 
The Tinker's Curse .... 
A Country Shop .... 
A Summer Night in Ballycastle 
A Man of the Congested Districts . 
The Twelve Pins, County Mayo 
The Gaelic Kevival .... 
Connemara Peasants watching Eaces 



Frontispiece 

FACING PAGB 

7 



10 

26 

28 

49 

62 

80 

92 

127 

160 

209 

230 

235 

240 



PART I 

THE MIDLANDS 



CHAPTER I 

A SURVEY 

I STOOD in the middle of Ireland ; the wind that came 
to me had blown across the wide space of the bog of 
Allen ; the road I had travelled ran back to the 
valley Hke the dried bed of a river. If you hump 
up the index-finger against your thumb, the knuckle 
of the digit will indicate the elevation I had reached. 
The road before me was straight and level. 

It was young in the morning. People were work- 
ing in the fields. I spoke to one of the men. 

" It's a good day." 

" A good day indeed, thanks be to God." 

" Has the priest passed this way yet ? " 

" He hasn't passed this way." 

I was going to a " station " at Farral Markey's 
house, and as the priest had not passed, I was in 
good time. I loitered and surveyed a country so 
spacious that the carts that creaked upon the road 
would have taken the whole of a day to cross the 
bounds of my vision, travelling east and west, south 
and north. It was in stretches of bog and patches 
of arable land. Clumps of trees were around certain 
farm houses. And now three figures approached, 
a grandmother, a young child, and an old man. 
They, too, were going to Farral Markey's. I joined 
them, and we went along the level road. 

Twice a year in parts of rural Ireland a " station " 



4 MY IMSE 

is held. A priest comes to a farmer's house, says 
Mass, and remains on to hear confessions. In the 
old days, when chapels were few, the custom of hold- 
ing " stations " was common. " Stations " have 
more to do with the hearing of confessions than 
with the saying of Mass. "WTiat I was going to 
assist at was called a station only to distinguish 
it from a Mass in the chapel, for it was not an 
official visitation. A young priest, a relative of the 
Markeys', was saying Mass for a congregation of his 
relatives. It was a local or rather a family festival. 
We encountered Farral's brother on the way. Peter 
was dressed for the festival, but he had taken off his 
black coat and was trimming the hedge with a bill- 
hook. He put the bill-hook on his shoulder and 
came on with us. 

The two brothers had the name of being miserly 
— certainly they never wasted an hour of the day. 
But if there were grasp in the family, it must have 
been with the elder brother. Peter was rather like 
the Irish peasant of the harsh EngMsh caricature, 
that is to say, he was a creature apart from the 
people who read newspapers ; he had an ungainly 
face, with the long upper lip and the wide mouth 
that has been so often caricatured, but his eyes were 
simple and kindly. When we entered the house, 
Farral Markey greeted us ; to each of his visitors 
he said, " You are kindly welcome." Farral Markey 
had not the open mouth and the simple gaze of his 
brother ; his mouth was tight, and his eyes were 
screwed to penetration. Men and women were in 
the house, but the priest had not yet come. As 
we waited for him we talked of the season. The 



MY IRISH YEAR 5 

women spoke humorously, the men spoke gravely ; 
the women were concerned for the fuel, the men 
for the crops. The rain had injured the oats, the 
hay and the turf. Farral Markey said, " There 
are three very desolate things, oats lying, hay lying, 
turf lying, and turf .lying is the most desolate of the 
three." It was hke a sentence out of the Old Irish 
Triads. 

The priest shook hands with us all ; then, with 
the acolyte, he went into the room that had been 
made ready. After a while we followed. The beds 
had been folded back into their presses, a white 
cloth was spread on a little table, and wax candles 
were lighted each side of the sacred text. We 
knelt down. No one was conscious of the fact 
that here two great and ancient pieties were re- 
conciled. Yet the Latin words and the long-de- 
scended service might stand for one idea, and the 
peasant house, the kneeHng family, the instruments 
of labour, might stand for another. 

In this part of the country it is not the custom 
for women to sit down to a meal with the priest. 
The women waited in the kitchen, and the priest, 
the peasants and myself sat down to our particular 
breakfast. We had tea, bread and butter and eggs, 
and, in honour of the festival, a bottle of wine was 
put upon the table. Farral Markey entertained us 
with dignity. At first we talked of the amendment 
in the drinking habits in the country. Farral Markey 
told us of the time when no man would leave the 
fair without having taken drink ; even if he were 
sober, a man would stagger on the road so that he 
might not lose the reputation of being a gallant 



6 MY IRISH YEAR 

fellow. Now all that is changed; if a man drinks 
at all, he will be likely to conceal his fault. The 
long campaign against intemperance in Ireland, 
inaugurated by Father Matthew in the forties, is 
responsible for this. The talk of the peasants at 
that table was mostly of their own surprising 
security. Old Patrick told us that, thirty years 
ago, he heard a priest say that the time would come 
when their hardships under the landlords would be 
told as a story round the fire — a story to startle the 
children. He never thought he would see the day 
when they would be clear of the menace of land- 
lordism. The old men became impassioned upon 
this topic, and we, who had some dim memory of 
the eighties, realised that the security behind this 
modest comfort was indeed remarkable. A clean 
cloth was spread upon the table, the peasants were 
well- clothed, the room was fairly furnished. In 
the old days, if a landlord, or a landlord's hanger-on, 
saw such a display, the rent would have been raised 
on the Markeys'. Farral Markey gave us the motto 
with which his old landlord justified his exactions, 
" The higher you load your horse, the tighter he will 
draw." 

The breakfast for the women was being prepared 
when we went into the kitchen. A boy was reading 
the prophecies out of Old Moore's Almanac. 
" September : a great war threatens Europe. The 
Austrian Empire, long a foe to the Infidel, is 
threatened with wars and dissensions. . . . October : 
unhappy France finds too late the evils consequent 
upon her infidelity. . . . England will soon have 
cause to repent of her alliance with a Pagan Power." 




P 2 



MY IRISH YEAR 7 

" Arrah," said one of the women, " will you read 
us something that will make the people's teeth 
chatter in their heads with terror ? " " December : 
in this month will pass away a determined enemy 
of Ireland. Fortified by her long struggle and 
united under her trusted leaders, Ireland advances 
towards her place amongst the nations — Dia Sack 
Eire." 

As soon as breakfast was over, the Markeys left 
the house. Peter took up the bill-hook and went back 
along the road, and I saw Farral opening a gate and 
crossing hurriedly to his work in the bog. The priest 
and myself were part of the road together. He had 
been ordained for the foreign mission, and he would 
leave Ireland in a few weeks. Some years hence I 
might see him again, when he would be taking a 
holiday in Ireland. Then he would be a capable 
Irish-American priest with something of a "hustle " 
upon him. We parted at the cross roads. 

And now I had the clouds for company. The 
heather of the bog ran into the deep grass that grew 
each side of the roadway. Big broad-leaved poplars 
stood up into the Hght. The bog, each side of the 
road, had colour and expanse, and the bog myrtles 
that grew out of the bog had the sun upon their 
leaves. There were black patches where the bog 
had been cut to the ooze. The canavan or bog 
cotton was scarce ; against the blackness of the 
cut-away bog it showed a few tremulous white heads. 
So far, the empty brown road had gone between 
low ditches. Now untidy hedge-rows began to hem 
it in, the fields had no cultivation ; in one, a party 
of crows were making savage depredation ; in 



8 MY IRISH YEAR 

another, five or six heads of young black cattle 
huddled themselves together ; they were strangers 
still to this part of the country. 

On the road I met a young man, a student from 
DubKn, who talked with the gloom of a Russian in- 
tellectual. " The people here lack the will," he 
said, "the passion for hfe." He was infected by the 
new Irish Drama. Their lack of will is consequent 
on their way of marrying. Here a woman's dowry 
is considered first, and the woman herself afterwards. 
A marriage is just a bargain. The children of such 
marriages can have little of the passion for life. 
" Look at the dog there," he said, " he does not 
bark at us even. The people have the same lack 
of aggressiveness." 

I agreed that we have the lowest marriage rate in 
Europe. The young reformer went on to say that 
our system of marriages does not produce people with 
passion enough to create a desirable life for them- 
selves. That is why America has such an attraction 
for our people. They find there a desirable Hfe 
ready made. 

I agreed that emigration is due to many other 
reasons besides economic ones. There are no 
centres of interest or amusement in the country. 

" And there is little freedom," said my friend. 
" No social freedom you may say. Last Sunday, 
in the next parish to this, I heard a priest declare 
from the altar his intention of putting down dancing 
in his parish. And this, after a sermon against 
emigration. He is a patriotic, earnest priest, and he 
is working hard to create a tolerable economic situa- 
tion. It is strange that he does not understand that 



MY IRISH YEAR 9 

a desirable social life is as necessary as a tolerable 
economic life. There is no political freedom either. 
A political orthodoxy dominates this country. A 
poUtical boss has been able to suppress the GaeHc 
League here. Some shop assistants who presume 
to belong to a different political organisation have 
been forced to leave the country. It's no wonder 
American becomes an idea — the idea of freedom and 
the fulness of life." 

The Irish country town is harsh and ugly, for it 
has been built by people who are still in the pastoral 
stage. The street is wide for the movement of 
herds. Four out of every five are public-houses. 
In the depths of these shops, one can see bacon and 
boots, reaping machines, and sacks of hme. One 
might borrow money in such a shop, or book one's 
passage to America. All the business of the town 
is parasitic, if we except the harness-makers, the 
coopers, and the cart-builders. The people in their 
shops grow rich. They can give big dowries with 
their daughters, and munificent gifts to the Church. 
These traders can send their sons and daughters to 
the secondary schools and the University. The 
only other people in Ireland who can do this are the 
Civil servants and a few graziers. 

There is neither fair or market to-day, and the 
town looks dead. Before the steps of the Court- 
house three or four men are standing in discussion; 
their appearance is provincial rather than rural ; 
they are members of the District Council, and they 
had a meeting to-day. Three or four young men, 
who have a certain fierceness of aspect, assemble 



10 MY IRISH YEAR 

near. They have ash plants in their hands, and one 
might guess that there was a question of awarding 
labourers cottages at the meeting to-day. There 
is a discontented party within the labour group ; 
it breaks up, and the men part shaking ash plants, 
and shouting threats at each other. 

Besides its main street, the town has its bog road. 
The bog road goes off at the single arm of a sign-post. 
It opens to the brown region of the bog, while the 
main street leads to the grazing country. In the 
latter street the houses are thatched, and some show 
a cup and saucer in the window as a sign that re- 
freshment is provided. Here there is the cart-builder's 
stall. I am always taken by the round, bright- 
coloured wheels that are soon to travel on the road. 
They stand against the wall of the house. Inside 
the stall a boy has his bare feet in the shavings and 
sawdust, and two youths are daring each other to 
lift the bar of the axle. The cart is on the stocks, 
and the cart-maker is planing its timbers ; he tells 
me of the many timbers that go into the cart, deal 
for the body, and larch for the shafts ; ash for the 
round of the wheel, and oak for the felloes. 

I pass by one of the hovels that are disappearing 
from the country-side. The old, dishevelled man 
who lived in it is standing in the middle of the road. 
We talked together for a while. He told me his age. 
" Then," said I, " you remember the famine." He 
turned his head away. " The famine," said he, " God 
knows I remember it." I shall not forget the look 
of shame and distress in his eyes. He had heard the 
bells ring in the Catholic Chapel for the first time 




THE ZITHER-PLAYER. 
(From a water-colour drawing by Jack B. Yeats. By permission of the artist.) 



MY IRISH YEAR 11 

since the penal laws were put in force. After he told 
me that, he began to speak vehemently. As a young 
man he had gone once to one of the great demon- 
strations organised by O'Connell. It was the de- 
monstration at Tara. " The night before," he said, 
" thirty of us slept in the one bed — a ploughed field 
it was. We thought that Dan was going to give us 
a word. But he didn't speak it. After that the 
heart was taken out of the country." The word 
that the men of Ireland waited for that day was 
the word for insurrection. Had O'Connell given it, 
a hundred thousand Irishmen might have been shot 
down, but Ireland would have something braver 
to think of now than the misery and beggary that 
followed O'Connell's retreat. She would have won 
her Constitution then, and not Ireland alone, but the 
bi-insular group would have been stronger, richer and 
more courageous, because of the adjustment that 
would have followed a desperate outbreak. 

It was dusk when we came to the house where the 
dance was to be held. The white geese lay before 
the black turf-stack, and the goats stood under the 
upturned cart. We went into the unlighted house. 
A tall girl greeted us. I did not see her face, but from 
the fashion of her clothes I guessed she was an 
emigrant returned for a while. Our first topic was 
life in the States. The girl of the house told us that 
in America she used to go to Gal way festivities 
because she liked the Connacht dances. Abroad, 
our people are held together by kinship, and the 
family group extended because the County Associa- 
tion, which is the Irish social organisation in America. 



12 MY IRISH YEAR 

The girl who had brought me to the house was also 
a returned emigrant ; she talked humorously about 
the people of Clare County. " They'd like you to 
believe that the wealth of the world was in their 
county, and that they only went abroad to see the 
people." The girls laughed ; both had gone to 
America to earn their dowries. " They never feed 
pigs in Clare ; oh no," said the other girl. " Here 
we don't beKeve that the pig gets his meal properly 
unless he gets it by the fire." " I'd never say that 
to the foreigners," said the other girl. " The Germans 
say that the Irish are reared amongst pigs and horses. 
The Germans live better than us, but they're poor, 
too. They have to leave their country." A young 
man who came in just then talked of the pig with 
more gravity. He could make forty pounds a year 
by keeping two sows, he told me. 

Before the dance the people kept in separate 
groups. The young girls sat in the chimney-nook, 
and the men stood in the shadow. A couple of old 
people sat by the big wooden cradle. There were 
nearly forty people in a room, fourteen feet by twelve. 
After some dances in the kitchen, we shifted to the 
barn. The floor was damp, but we danced with 
great energy. The dances were neither graceful nor 
elaborate. I had heard the priest denounce these 
" half-sets " as importations from the back-lanes 
of Scotland. The boys said the girls did not approve 
of the Irish dances because the " swinging " in them 
was not vigorous enough. 

Someone once told me that the bright-haired 
Milesian type was disappearing out of Ireland, and 
that the surviving Irish type would be Iberian and 



' MY IRISH YEAR 18 

dark-haired. There were no bright heads there. 
Man after man, girl after girl, was dark of hair and 
face. The barn, hghted by the guttering candles, 
the long forms with various groups of young men 
and women, the dancers on the floor, suggested more 
than one of Goya's Caprices. The barn was lighted 
by candles stuck in the walL The chickens in the 
corner wakened up and complained in the soft voices 
of partridges. The dance ended while it was still 
young in the night. Very peaceably we returned 
across the country. 



CHAPTER II 

RURAL ECONOMY 

I. The Conquest of the Land 

In 1879 there was a failure in the potato crop in 
Ireland. The failure was not complete as in 1846, 
but it was more than partial, and in some parts of 
the country the crop was less than one-fourth that 
of previous years. The corn crop too was under 
the average. A thrill of apprehension went through 
the country ; the horrors of the famine of 1846- 
47 were still remembered ; " clearances " had been 
carried out, and further " clearances " were threatened 
by owners of property. But the year 1879 does not 
stand for disaster in Irish agrarian history. Aid 
from the outside was forthcoming, and reUef was 
prompt and well organised. Parnell and his col- 
leagues formed one rehef committee, and the Duchess 
of Marlborough formed another ; money came in ; 
it was subscribed in Ireland, in England and Scotland, 
in places abroad, and especially in the United States. 
From February till late in August, reHef was dis- 
tributed to those who had need of it ; as much as 
six stone of meal in the week was given to house- 
holds in which the family was large, as little as one 
stone in the week was given to the old man or the 
old woman Hving in a hut alone. 

The disease that follows scarcity broke out ; flour 

14 



MY IRISH YEAR 15 

and necessary nourishment were granted to house- 
holds in which there were cases. Late in the crisis 
Pariiament enacted measures for further help ; re- 
lief works were undertaken, and facilities and powers 
for borrowing money were granted to landlords 
and to Boards of Guardians ; the landlords were to 
expend in improving their estates, and the Boards 
of Guardians in purchasing seeds. With seed avail- 
able, the fatality certain to follow on a year of failure 
was averted. A farmer whose valuation was £15 or 
under, might obtain for seed a hundred of potatoes 
and fourteen stone of oats ; for these he was debited 
with a sum which he repaid in four instalments of 
£1, 4s. 6d. 

In our every-day potatoes we have a momento of 
the crisis of 1879 ; the Board of Guardians went to 
Scotland for the new seed ; the " champion " 
potatoes was brought over to us ; in two years no 
other potatoes but the " champion " was planted. 

The year 1879 marks an epoch in our agrarian 
history. Its hunger gave force to a movement which 
was to destroy landlordism. On the other hand, its 
misery and beggary produced a depression the 
effects of which still remain. 

In 1879 the tenant farmers had obtained a certain 
security of tenure, but the rents they were com- 
pelled to pay were exorbitant. The people had been 
forced back to scramble for a Hvehhood on the land, 
and they were prepared to bargain for the soil as 
people in a besieged city bargain for bread. When 
a landlord turned out a tenanb, he could always get 
two others to bargain for the holding. The rents 
paid were competitive, and often they were made up 



16 _ MY IRISH YEAR 

by wages earned in England and Scotland, or by 
money sent home from America. The pinch of 
famine forced the people to claim abatements in 
rents, and the landlord who refused such claims 
got no rents at all that year. The Land League had 
been established ; now the agitation was carried into 
every district in Ireland, and the man who had stood 
without a coat on his back, waiting for the charity 
meal, now asserted his right to the earth he tilled, 
and the fruits thereof. Meanwhile the intelligent 
people of the County Mayo had discovered a weapon 
which proved effective against the landlord who was 
ready to evict, and the land grabber who was ready 
to take over the tenant's holding. Their discovery 
is named after Captain Boycott, who was the first 
to have experience of the new interdict. He made 
the people of Ireland familiar with this wise and 
simple social operation by a letter written with the 
object of making material for a new Coercion Act. 
Landlordism was now attacked with resolution and 
intelligence. The year 1881 marked an advance 
towards tenant liberation. In that year an act 
was passed through which gave the tenant his land 
at a " fair " and not at a competitive rent. 

But the land agitation went on. The year 190S 
closed the epoch of revolution. The Act passed in 
that year enables the tenant to- purchase his holding. 
The landlord is paid in cash from the Treasury, and 
the tenants pay back the purchase price in annuities 
extending over sixty years. Meantime the whole 
of Ireland is in pawn for the amount involved in 
the transfer of the land. Sixty millions of money 
has been already expended, and one hundred and 



MY IRISH YEAR 17 

twenty millions more will be expended in completing 
the transfer. Tlie money is being raised on the 
secmity of the British Treasury, but every penny of 
the hundred and eighty millions is being debited 
to Ireland. 



II. La Terre qui Meurt 

Let us go back again to the year 1879. When 
those who remembered '46 and '47 looked upon 
wasted fields again, they thought it plain that the 
will of God was against the people of Ireland. They 
instructed their children to believe that Ireland 
was a woeful land, and that any country under the 
sun was better than the place they were born in. 
The young saw the crowds standing outside the house 
where the Relief Committee met. " The Irish spirit, 
so much lauded, was completely broken down," writes 
a friend who had assisted at such scenes, " and 
the people appeared hke menials." These scenes 
of beggary and misery were impressed upon the 
minds of the younger generation. The mother of 
fine girls proclaimed loudly that they were starving 
at home, and the father of stalwart sons stood in 
a snow-storm, in his bare feet, and without a coat 
on his back. One may be sure that the pot boihng 
with the charity meal was not forgotten by growing 
boys and girls. And from the other side of the 
Atlantic friends calling to them to leave the beggarly 
land. The hope of every boy and girl was to get 
away. My elders tell me of a parish priest who used 
to say, " Now, boys and girls, there's a good crop of 

B 



18 MY IRISH YEAR 

potatoes, and let me see that I'll be making a good 
many marriages." That M^as before '79. After- 
wards the people did not take life in that easy way. 
For years after the marriage register in our parish 
was a blank. Emigration became an exodus ; life 
on the land became something to resent, the agricul- 
tural lore and the tradition of good labour lapsed. 
Abnormal emigration, abandonment of tillage, con- 
tempt for agricultarul employment ; these are the 
effects of the depression of 1879. 



. Land and Labour 

The settlement of the labourer has gone with the 
settlement of the tenant farmer, and as a result of 
a series of enactments, beginning in 1883, we have 
in every district in Ireland, scores of neat cottages 
with garden allotment. The Irish agricultural 
labourer can now obtain a cottage with three rooms, 
a piggery, a garden allotment of an acre or half an 
acre, and for this he is charged a rent of from one 
to two shillings per week. The expense of building 
the cottage, and of providing the garden allotment 
that goes with them, is incurred by the Rural District 
Council. The Secretary of the Department of Agri- 
culture, recently reminded the labourers that half 
their rents were paid for them by the rate-payers 
and the tax-payers of Ireland. Over three and a 
half millions have been expended so far on these 
cottages and allotments, and a great deal more 
money is forthcoming. 

On the whole, these cottages by the wayside give 



MY IRISH YEAR 19 

a hopeful aspect to the country. They are neat, 
well-built, and sanitary, and compare favourably 
with the old mud-walled and mud-floored cabins. 

The labourer of the new dispensation begins out- 
side the bad tradition which forbade a display of 
taste about a house. Flowers are before the door 
of the new cottages, and there are creepers upon 
the walls. The labourer can keep pigs, poultry and 
a goat, and grow his potatoes and vegetables in his 
garden allotment. Generally speaking, his acre or 
half -acre is well cultivated. 

In relation to the agricultural interest the situation 
of the labourer's cottage is not satisfactory. In 
Scotland the agricultural labourer is directly associ- 
ated with the farm upon which he works. He lives 
within its gates, its problems and possibilities are 
constantly before his mind, and from the time when 
they can open a gate, his children are in the way of 
becoming intimate with the manifold business of 
agriculture. With us, the labourer's connection 
with the farm is intermittent ; the farms are small, 
and, for the greater part of the year, they are worked 
by the farmer and his family. The labourer's children 
grow up, not inside a farm-stead, but upon the road- 
way, and they miss that which should be in the mind 
of a good agriculturist before he is fifteen — that 
which makes a great part of his wisdom — an intimacy 
with cattle and horses and the stock of a farm. 
We have not the good agricultural labourers that 
we once had. The minds of the people have been 
turned away from the land, tillage has not been 
developed, and our young labourers have not had 
the opportunity of acquiring the full lore of the 



20 . MY 

agriculturist. An instance given by Mr T. P. GiU, 
makes us realise how far we have departed from 
friendship with agriculture. In the Agricultural 
Training School for the Midlands, Ballyhaise, Co. 
Cavan, the Department has been forced to introduce 
milking machines for the dairv cattle — the girls can 
no longer be got to do the milking. 

The labourer with us obtains from 9s. to 12s. per 
week at intermittent work. VlTien times are urgent 
he takes a higher wage. If you speak to him about 
the labourer, the farmer will insist that he is not 
worthy of his hire. He will not put heart into a 
day's work, he will come one day, and stay away 
another, he will break off in the middle of the day 
and not come back to the field again. If you speak 
about the Irish labourer to a farmer in England or 
Scotland, you will hear a more pleasant account. 
About 25,000 Irish labourers work in England, and 
Scotland for several months of the year. The 
farmers of Scotland and England give a good account 
of the quaUty of the migratory labour. A Scottish 
agriculturist, Mr Munro Ferguson says : — 

" In the East of Scotland a great part of the 
agricultural work is done by workers from Ireland, 
who come over, mostly from Mayo and Sligo. They 
are the best workers that we know — extraordinary 
conscientious workers. We are supposed to work 
fairly hard in Scotland, but I heard one of my best 
tenants say, that he liked to have one or two Irish- 
men about him to keep his men up to the mark," ^ 

What is the reason for the contrast between the 
slackness at home, and the strenuousness abroad ? 

1 Quoteri by Mr Gill in his pamphlet. 



MY IRISH YEAR 21 

Mr Gill implies that better wages (20s. to 25s. per 
week) supplies the motive for the better service. But 
I would take it upon myself to say, that with present 
conditions, a farmer in Ireland who paid his labourers 
at the Scotch and English rate, would not get the 
labour out of the men that the Scotch or English 
farmer gets. It is good living that gives the impulse 
for good work. In Scotland or in England the 
labourer is well nourished. In Ireland he is hardly 
nourished at all. The labourer who comes to an 
Irish farmer, begins his day with a breakfast of 
bread and tea. He comes back from the field to a 
dinner of potatoes, cabbage and Russian bacon. 
Tea is sent down to the fields to him. He needs the 
stimulus of tea again, or else he feels that he needs 
porter. A man cannot do a good day's work upon 
this hardly nourishing diet. The farmer feeds himself 
and his family as badly as he feeds the labourer. 
White bread and tea for breakfast, potatoes, cabbage 
and foreign bacon for dinner, and tea again, again 
and again. The price of eggs is now so good that 
few farmers will keep them for their household, and 
as the creameries take over the milk, churning is 
not done in the house, and buttermilk may not be got. 
Almost everyone in Ireland is badly fed, and this 
is not because food is scarce, but because food is 
overlooked. A farmer will start for the Fair at an 
early hour in the morning, having taken for breakfast 
only tea and bread. He will stay at the Fair all 
day without taking a meal, but stimulating his 
energies with two or three glasses of whisky. If 
you meet him in the evening, the man will appear 
drunk. Day after day he takes the same dinner ; 



22 MY IRISH YEAR 

potatoes, cabbage, AmericaD or Russian bacon. 
Soup is never made in his house, and cabbage is the 
only vegetable grown for his household. There is 
no longer the supply of milk and butter that there 
used to be, when the churning was done in the house. 
The people have ceased to make porridge for break- 
fast and supper. Tea is taken at every hour in the 
day. In the country towns, one cannot get proper 
-food properly cooked, the ordinary dinner served to 
men in the eating-house is a hard beef-steak with 
bread and tea. Formerly the people lived on milk 
and potatoes, and their good looks and vigour 
impressed writers so different as Borrow and the 
Rev. Mr Hall. " How is it you have so many fine 
children ? " says the lady mentioned in " Hall's 
Tour." " An't please your ladyship's noble honour 
we blame the potatoes," said the peasant woman. 
In those days when a man came from the fields, he 
put some handfuls of meal in a quart of buttermilk 
and drank it off. Now he takes a mug of long-drawn 
tea — " tea so strong that it would brand a lamb," 
as the people say. Pork, butter, milk, and eggs are 
sold and the people buy foreign bacon, bread made 
from American flour, and tea at as high a price as 
3s. 4d. per lb. The v/ant of nourishment more than 
climate is behind that lack of force that is noticeable 
in Irish life. 

The raising of store cattle bulks as the largest 
industry connected with Irish land. But in 1905, 
the value of eggs, poultry, bacon, and dairy produce 
exported, exceeded the value of cattle raised in this 
wasteful way. Butter-making is in the way of be- 
coming the most important Irish industry, but it 



MY IRISH YEAR 23 

is interrupted because Irish butter-making ceases 
about September. Next year the Irish farmers have 
to conquer the English markets again, going into 
competition with the Danish farmers, who hold their 
markets all the year round. The creation of winter 
dairying is the main problem before Irish agricul- 
turists. It has to be done by the farmers keeping 
a batch of cattle to calve in the winter, and 
by feeding his cattle with root crops. This will 
necessitate tillage and labour. Increased tillage 
would mean labourers employed all the year round, 
probably at better pay, and it would mean a 
check upon emigration. The Department is making 
experiments with the object of showing farmers that 
win ter- dairying would pay, and the Agricultural 
Organisation Society are interesting their groups 
of the co-operators in the subject. So far, the 
farmers and labourers have not wakened up to the 
possibilities. ^ 



IV. The Reconstruction of Rural Life 

A rise in foreign competition and an increase in 
the cost of living ; an absence of tillage, a lack of 
skill and method with farmer and with labourer ; 
an enormous charge against the country on account 
of land purchase and the labour settlement : a 
student of Irish affairs might express a dread of 
bankruptcy when he considers these. But there are 
factors making for solvency and economic progress. 
To begin with, the purchase of the holding has a 
moral effect upon the people. A man owns a property 



24 MY IRISH YEAR 

that he can pass on to his son and his grandson, 
and the tendency of human nature is to improve 
such. The struggle against the dual ownership of 
the land is over, the people have attained a great 
sobriety. The arrival of peasant proprietorship 
has found the country equipped with two valuable 
agencies for the improvement of rural business ; the 
first of these is a State department, the Department 
of Agricultural and Technical Instruction, the second 
is a voluntary association — the Irish Agricultural 
Organisation Society. 

In August 1896, there was handed to Mr Gerald 
Balfour, then Chief Secretary for Ireland, a docu- 
ment called the Report of the Recess Committee. 
An accompanying letter informed the chief that the 
Recess Committee had its origin in an invitation 
which Mr Horace Plunket had issued the year before 
to a number of members of Parliament and other 
Irishmen of various political opinions, to meet for 
the discussion of any measure for the good of Ireland, 
upon which all parties might be found in agreement. 
The Committee recommended that a government 
Department should be created to foster agriculture, 
and that the branches of agriculture, industries, and 
technical instruction should be under the care of this 
Department. The constitution of the proposed 
Department, was laid down in the document pre- 
sented. This Report of the Recess Committee was 
accepted by Mr Gerald Balfour as the basis of the 
legislation which he added to his other important 
measure, the Local Government Act of 1898. Tlie 
deliberation of the Committee is now established in 



MY IRISH YEAR 25 

the Department of Agriculture and Technical In- 
struction. It is the only department in Ireland 
that contains an element of popular control. 

The problem before the newly-established depart- 
ment was indicated in the opening of the Recess 
Committee's Report.^ Ireland is dependent on 
agriculture, but its soil is imperfectly tilled, the area 
under cultivation is decreasing, and the diminishing 
population is without industrial habits or technical 
skill. Before the days of steam, Ireland was a rival 
of Great Britain in commerce and in manufacture. 
Through hostile legislation, Great Britain struck 
at all her industries not excepting agriculture. The 
population was forced into entire dependence on the 
land and the country was reduced to an economic 
condition involving periodic famines. The more 
energetic elements of the population were driven to 
emigrate, carrying their skill to foreign countries and 
of those who remained behind, the larger portion 
were subjected to the bad influences of the penal 
laws. " It is impossible to beheve," says the Report, 
" that bad as our present situation is, both in in- 
dustrial habits and industria,l wealth, it is not worse 
than might have been produced in any country by 
such legislation as that to which we refer." 

The Department is now in being for about fom'teen 
years. It influences the farmer directly through 
the County Councils. They raise a rate in aid of 
Agriculture and Technical instruction, and employ 
instructors recommended by the Department. The 

^ A new edition has been issued. (Dublin : Brown & Nolan ; 
London : T. Fisher Unwiu). The Report of the Recess Committee 
has not merely an historical interest. Jt remains a valuable work 
on the resources of Ireland. 



26 MY IRISH YEAR 

instructors lecture on agriculture, horticulture, 
poultry-raising ; they visit farms and talk with the 
farmers. Ireland has now a well-organised system 
of rural instruction. 

What is the attitude of the farmers to the in- 
structors sent into their parish ? They resent their 
coming because rates had been raised to pay salaries 
to the lecturers. But their first unpopularity has 
passed away and the instruction given is beginning to 
have effect. The farmers are beginning to amend 
their methods. Potatoes are sprayed and fields are 
top-dressed with more thoroughness. Better manures 
are being used. The farmers, young and old are 
becoming more alert to ideas. 

Going through the Midlands, one notes that the 
best cultivation is before the new labourer's cottage, 
or on the holding occupied by a retired policeman, 
postman or schoolmaster. These people have come 
to agriculture with fresh interest : they are out of 
the old rut. The work of the Department will 
enable the farmers of Ireland to re-discover agricul- 
ture. Behind the County Council's schemes is a 
fine organisation and the new and splendidly equipped 
College of Science in DubHn. In each province 
there is a school of agriculture to which farmers can 
send their sons : the fee charged is proportionate 
to the valuation of his holding. When young men 
trained in these schools begin to apply their know- 
ledge and their methods at home, the farming in the 
district will be greatly improved. But as yet the 
farmer's sons have not taken full advantage of the 
training offered them in such schools. 







„ o 



MY IRISH YEAR 27 

The creation of a social order oi rural Ireland — 
that is the design apparent in the work of the Irish 
Agricultural Organisation Society. " A social order 
should provide for three things," says the prophet 
of the organisation movement, Mr George Russell, 
" for economic development, for poUtical stability, 
for a desirable social hfe." ^ In rural Ireland there 
has been no social order, since the clan system with 
its sentiments of loyalty and kindness, its realities 
of service and protection was destroyed. 

The nucleus of the new order is a group of farmers 
co-operating for a creamery or a rural Bank, for the 
sale of eggs or the preparation of flax. Through the 

energy of Father K a co-operative creamery has 

just been estabhshed in our parish. The capital for 
the machinery, the building, etc., was subscribed 
in the district. It was inevitable that a couple of 
farmer-shopkeepers should take over a good deal of 
the management. They subscribed a large portion 
of the capital and they have what the farmers lack, 
a business training, a familiarity with accounts. 
But their immediate interest is not in the develop- 
ment of the full co-operative idea, and I am not 
surprised to learn that, for the present, there is not 
to be an egg-centre in connection with the creamery, 
and that the co-operative group is not to become 
a medium for the direct purchase of seeds, machinery 
and manures. However, as the co-operative centre 
develops these restrictions must be broken down. 

The establishment for creamery has noticeable 
effects on the people of a district. I will try to 

^"Co-operation and Nationality," by Geo. W, Russell. Dublin: 
Maunsel & Co. 



28 MY IRISH YEAR 

state some of them from the point of view of the 
small farmer, of the man with two or three cows. 
As I have said already, the peasant is by habit badly 
nourished ; milk and butter are the staple provisions 
of his house. When the man with two or three 
cows sends to the creamery, he has only Saturday 
night's and Sunday's milk. This is not sufficient 
for the household, and the children come short of 
their nourishment. With four or five cattle, the 
milk of Saturday night and Sunday would give a 
churning after the creamery had been supphed. 
The profits from co-operation may enable him to 
add to his stock, and the organisation movement 
may bring him into the very profitable business of 
dairying all the year round. The connection with the 
creamery has a moral effect on the small farmer's house 
— it entails a strict discipline and cleanliness, and it 
produces sure returns at the end of each dairying 
month. These things tend to make the farm-house 
a business place. The richer farmer gets a more 
ample return : the economy of his household is not 
disturbed by sending out the milk ; he gets a good 
price, and as he also gets his share in the profits of 
the creamery, the development of the co-operative 
society gives him opportunities for good investments, 
and his connection with the business side of it fits 
him to deal with public affairs. The labourer gets 
nothing out of the co-operative movement as applied 
to dairying ; indeed he is at a loss by it, as the butter 
and milk which he used to get as payment in kind 
from the farmers, is now diminished. But the 
development of the co-operative idea may produce 
co-operative grazing, and this would be a great 



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imLi 



MY IRISH YEAR 29 

boon to the labourers. As to the farmer-shop- 
keepers, their connection with the co-operative move- 
ment is important, and I will dwell upon it in another 
page. 

So far, the co-operative society as it affects in- 
dividuals. As the group gains capital and experience, 
the society extends its operations. A Rural Bank 
is formed, cheese -making goes with butter-making, 
the society takes up the collection and the sale of 
eggs, it purchases directly, manure, seeds and 
machinery for its members, and it soon has sufficient 
funds to build a village hall. And now a bond holds 
the people together — the very real bond of economic 
interest ; the community as a whole becomes eager 
about the development of its resources and a good 
administration of its business ; the man that sends 
poor milk to the creamery, and the man w^ho will 
not mind his affairs sufficiently well to pay off the 
instalment due at the Rural Bank, soon find that 
pubHc opinion is against them. The district societies 
link themselves into federation for purchase and 
sale, and through these the farmers are able to act 
on the markets. About a hundred thousand country 
people are members of the co-operative societies, 
and their trade turn-over this year will be about 
three million pounds. 

" In a few years' time," says Mr Russell, " instead 
of the dislocation and separation of interests which 
have been so disastrous in its effects, instead of 
innumeral petty businesses all striving for their 
own rather than for the general welfare, there will be 
in each parish one large association able to pay well 
for expert management, with complete control over 



30 MY IRISH YEAR 

all processes of purchase, manufacture and sale." 
There are powerful interests ready to oppose this 
design. The Irish country traders do not deal 
merely in tea, bacon, meal, flour and porter ; they 
sell manures, seeds, farm implements ; they lend 
money, and they barter goods for eggs and butter. 
The small farmers of Ireland are, in a phrase they 
would use themselves, " drowned in debt " to them. 
The farmers never know how much they really owe 
the traders, and to be told that they have been charged 
£3 per ton for manure worth 6s. per ton, does not 
startle them into revolt. The trader in a country 
district has great influence. He controls large 
capital, he owns farms, he is on the district council, 
and the county council, on the committee of the 
co-operative society, he is prominent in the local 
branch of the United Irish League, he is patron to 
many clients. As members of the District and 
County Councils, the traders have a strong repre- 
sentation on the Council of Agriculture. This year 
there was question of a sum of money being made 
over to the Irish Agricultural Society from the 
Development Commissioners. But the Council of 
Agriculture advised the Vice-President of the Depart- 
ment (Mr T. W. Russell) not to support the applica- 
tion of the Agricultural Organisation Society. The 
traders of Ireland had sufficient poHtical influence 
to make the Vice-President of the Department of 
Agriculture declare for " non-controversal co-opera- 
tion," that is co-operation that will not hinder the 
trader from selhng seeds and manures to his 
dependents, the small farmers. 
What it never had, it never lost, and the failure 



MY IRISH YEAR 31 

of the Agricultural Organisation Society to obtain 
funds for the promotion of agricultural co-operation 
will not injure its work. But distinctly it is a bad 
thing for the country there should be rivalry between 
a great State Department and an important volun- 
tary association. The Irish parliamentary party 
nominally represents the agrarian interest, but it 
really represents the trading interest ; it is the 
traders who select the candidates and subscribe to 
the party funds. In the crisis they were able to use 
the machinery of the party against the Organisation 
Society. As the farmers of Ireland find their interest 
more and more bound up with the co-operative idea, 
they will be forced to exact pledges for the local 
council or for the national legislature, or else will 
have to create a party representing definitely the 
agricultural interest; this will have political con- 
sequences. In an Irish legislature, the democratic 
party will be divided by this. 

Immediate self-interest hardens the country trader 
against agricultural co-operation. A wider view, 
however, would show him that his interests are bound 
up with the interests of a prospering community. In 
a well organised district, the country trader would 
not lend money or sell manures or seeds, but he 
would be a member of a society that would have 
many ways of turning profits. His knowledge and 
his training would give him a position, and a develop- 
ment of the district resources would permit a good 
investment for the idle money which the country 
shopkeeper generally has by him. 

Ireland, when she strives from her own will, shows 
a remarkable tendency to return to national in- 



32 MY IRISH YEAR 

stitutions. The temporary expedient of boycotting, 
for instance, reproduced the ultimate punishment 
in Gaelic law, the interdict which left a persistent 
offender a prisoner at large. The land struggle 
came from an economic necessity, no doubt, but 
behind the struggle, making it revolutionary, there 
was the memory of the Gaelic law that refused to 
recognise the possibility of lordship in the land. 
The design for a social order in Ireland is hopeful, 
because in co-operation it reproduces another typical 
institution. A district organised for the building 
up of a HveHhood and a culture, restores the communal 
life of GaeHc times, and the co-operative organisa- 
tions, Hnking themselves on to larger federation, 
are the old clan system stated in economic terms. 
The co-operative movement has been successful in 
Ireland because there were memories, characteristics 
and traditions, tiiat made it intelligible to the people. 
Mutual aid in our time was a factor in the economic 
life of the Irish cottage, and a house wanting a par- 
ticular piece of work done could get scores of hands 
from the neighbours. Such a party is called 
" Meitheal " (" mahil "). In our part of the country 
the tradition of mutual aid survives in the mahils 
for out of door work, turf-cutting generally. 



V. Emigration 

This is a country of small farms. There are many 
holdings of fifty acres and above it, and there are 
several grazing ranches of some hundreds of acres 
each, but the fifteen to twenty acres farm is repre- 



MY IRISH YEAR 3S 

sentative, and the household existing upon it is the 
typical household. 

In such a household there are, say, five children — 
three sons and two daughters or three daughters and 
two sons. For the purpose of illustration I will 
take the case of a farmer with three sons and two 
daughters. Let us call them, Pat, Michael, John, 
Mary, and Bridget. 

Pat is heir apparent to the farm, and his future is 
secure. Mary is the eldest girl and is entitled to a 
dowry of about £100. The father will provide this 
by saving part and by borrowing part on the security 
of the farm. Mary with her dowry gets a husband. 
Pat and Mary are thus provided for. 

Three children are left — Michael, John, and Bridget. 
Michael's share of the farm when he comes to man's 
estate will be a £10 note, for Pat cannot afford any 
more. Pat will marry a girl with a dowry, but 
part of her dowry must go to paying off the debt on 
the farm and giving Michael his share. As he cannot 
have the farm nor money to buy a farm, Michael must 
try to get a " position " ; in order to get a " position " 
he must have education, and the education is given 
him that he may become (1) A priest on the foreign 
mission ; (2) a national school teacher ; (3) a con- 
stabulary man; (4) a shop assistant in the town. 
One of these careers an Irish farmer always designs 
for his second son. He would not dream of making 
him a tradesman, mainly for the reason that a trades- 
man is not " genteel." So Michael gets his education 
and his £10 note and becomes a constabulary man, 
or a shop assistant, or drifts out of the country. 

John and Bridget are left. Bridget has no dowry, 





34 MY IRISH YEAR 

therefore cannot get a husband, and John cannot get 
a wife with a dowry, and therefore cannot get a farm. 
He could become an agricultural labourer, get a 
cottage, a wife, though a dowerless one, and live 
comfortably at home. But John will not become a 
labourer. He would at once feel de-classed. His 
family would be mortified if he became a labourer, 
and married a labourer's daughter. A farmer's son 
become an agricultural labourer — never. His people 
are raising the price of a passage for him, and one fine 
day John will go off to America with a score of boys 
and girls from the district. 

Bridget goes first. She could get a labourer for her 
husband, but if she married one, she would be de- 
classed. She may not marry a farmer's son without 
a dowry. For Bridget, the price of a passage to 
America is scraped up, and she goes off to become a 
domestic servant and earn a dowry. When she earns 
her dowry she will come back and marry a farmer or 
a farmer's son. 

It is part of Bridget's business in America to watch 
out for a situation for John. In time she sends for 
him, generally contributing the passage money. John 
goes out to earn a farm as Bridget went out to earn 
a dowry. Do they succeed ? Of twenty Bridgets 
that go out to earn dowries three return with the 
dowry, marry and settle down. Seventeen are lost 
to Ireland. Half of them are never heard of again — 
some not even heard of by their parents. The others 
live and die domestic servants in America or get 
husbands there. In the first years of their exile they 
may pay a visit to the old people dressed in the fine 
garments of America, and making the stay-at-home 



MY IRISH YEAR 35 

girls envious of the good times they are supposed to 
have. But for all their flaunting and boasting of the 
wonders of America they would be glad of marriage 
and a home in their own country. The dowry is not 
earned, or earned only when America has left its mark 
on them, and turned them, fresh j/oung Irish girls, to 
withered women of thirty. Even the dowry then 
ceases to avail ; the young men pass them by. 

Out of twenty Johns that go out two come back 
to buy farms. Of the other eighteen some go under 
wholly and they are never heard of — others pick up a 
living by slaving twice as hard as an agricultural 
labourer in Ireland. Of the two who come back to 
buy farms, one is successful, he settles down. The 
other is not successful. He cannot get the land. 
The farmer-shopkeeper has been adding farm to farm, 
and now he will not break up his grazing land. Those 
who read the Unionist papers have an idea that cattle 
driving is connected with a desire to make a man give 
up his land for nothing. But the hazel stick is a 
desperate remedy for a great evil. The rancher 
won't sell his land at any price, and a grazing ranch 
must be broken up into small farms if the people are 
to live in the country. The second man who returned 
from America cannot buy a farm in Ireland. He 
goes back to the States and lives and dies there. 

Out of forty young men and women who leave this 
county thirty-eight swear at the railway stations 
that they are coming back. They are in earnest. 
One man and three women return. Thirty-six don't. 

This is emigration in the main stream. Add to it 
those who leave the country, not from any economic 
necessity, but because of the lack of life in their 



36 MY IRISH YEAR 

district. When a cross-roads dance ceases, when a 
branch of the Gaelic League closes down, or when a 
Gaelic football or hockey team is disbanded, emigra- 
tion rises in a parish. Let us remember, too, that in 
an Irish peasant household the parental authority is 
absolutely Roman. Young men and young women 
are denied, not merely hire for their service, but the 
right of choosing a wife or a husband for themselves. 
A good deal of emigration is due to a revolt against 
this household tyranny. 

Amongst the people of the Gaelic stock the family, 
not the individual, is the unit that is considered. 
" One child should rear another," is a saying current 
in many Irish houses. Even when they are abroad 
the cliildren of peasant households do not forget 
their obhgation to their family. Part of their earn- 
ings is regularly sent home, and a place is sought for 
a brother or sister. The Irish never go back to the 
land in America ; they remain in the cities where they 
create the same sort of social organisation as they 
had at home. They make a clan. Emigrants from 
particular districts in Ireland go to particular cities 
in America. The West of Ireland peasants go to 
Boston, the peasants of the Midlands to Pittsburg, 
the peasants of the South to New York. There is 
emigration to South America from particular parts 
of Longford, Meath and Westmeath, and I have been 
told that there is a village in Westmeath where 
Spanish is spoken in the street. 

Irish emigration is exaggerated by the attraction of 
kinship. The great pull to America comes from the 
thousands of Irish girls in domestic service in the 
States. Practically the whole of the domestic service 



MY IRISH YEAR 37 

of America is open to girl-emigrants from Ireland. 
They receive good wages, and they have access to 
the social life that is to their minds. Bridget goes 
to an American city where her native parish in County 
Roscommon is well-represented. She becomes a 
domestic servant. She also becomes a member of 
the County Roscommon Ladies' Association. When 
she attends the ball given by the Association, Miss 
Maloney's dress is described in an Irish-American 
newspaper, and this description read at home gives 
her sisters and girl comrades a sense of splendid life. 
Bridget can save, send money home, and supply pre- 
pared passages. She can take her holidays in Ireland, 
and wear dresses that give her distinction. The 
dresses that she leaves behind are a constant reminder 
of the dignities of American life. 

Her brother John would not emigrate if he had not 
been taught that to work for another farmer was 
somehow degrading. And Bridget herself would not 
emigrate if she had a dowry. To keep John and 
Bridget in Ireland, we have to reform the ideas of 
one, and show the other how to get a dowry. This 
is really our main emigration problem. John's case 
can only be met by the reconstruction, materially and 
intellectually, of rural life in Ireland. Bridget's case 
might be met by some system of insurance that would 
allow a girl to obtain thirty or fifty pounds when she 
came to the age of twenty. The prepared passage 
is sent into Ireland, in many cases, not because the 
persons across the water believe that America provides 
a good environment, but because they think there is 
no other way of giving a brother or a relative a start 
in life. If the passage money went to apprenticing 



38 MY IRISH YEAR 

the youth to some trade, it would be better for those 
in Ireland and those in America. Some time the 
Irish people may think it worth their while to create 
a national fund into whicli would be paid the monies 
that are now spent in pre-paid passages. The fund 
might be used to provide boys and girls with a train- 
ing that would enable them to make a livelihood in 
Ireland. 



American Letters 

" No one ever sent a good story out of Ireland," said 
a returned emigrant-girl to me. The letters written 
from Ireland are conventional, superficial, and hard. 
They always make it apparent that the person 
written to has money and the person writing needs 
some of it. Here is a letter as written by the 
amanuensis of a peasant family. It is the type of 
the Irish letter to the States : — 

My dear Anne, — I hope you are well as this leaves us at present. 
We are well, thank God, tho' this year has been a hard one on 
the poor farmers. It rained so hard we couldn't get the hay half 
saved. The turf isn't half home. We have the rent made 
nearly all up except two pounds or three. We hope you are 
not sick or anything that you didn't \\Tite home for two months. 
Dear Anne, don't be working too hard, and try and keep yourself 
well. John Burns' daughter came home from Chicago a week 
ago, you wouldn't know her, she that was the fine fresh rosy 
cheeked girl. She's got very thin, and her face is as yellow as a 
duck's foot. They say she has £150 saved. And she'll settle 
down if she can get a nice place to go into. She says that John 
O'Hara's daughter, Mary, that they be boasting about having 
made a great match out there, saying her man has her hung 
down with jewellery and pearls, married a black nigger man 



MY IRISH YEAR 39 

that keeps a saloon. Sara Burns bouglit lier father a side car 
and they have the rent paid. It's the first time we were behind 
the rent for a long time — so, dear Anne, if you can see your way 
to sending us a pound or two to put us over the half-year with- 
out stinting yourself, it will save your father a lot of trouble. 
He doesn't know that I'm making this request, but he has not 
put a bit of meat across his mouth for three months, for we 
couldn't afford it. 

We heard last Sunday from the men coming from the Chapel 
that the Parliament is going to make the landlord give the 
people the land entirely, and we'll have to pay no more rent. 
Dear Anne, if this is the truth, we'll ask no more money of you, 
and you can keep it all up for your own future. Do you think 
will you come home this spring 1 We do be longing to see your 
face again, and we pray for you every night. 

This letter was written for us by a grand daughter of Michael 
Fannigan's — Maria Cunroy's eldest child. Send her a silk 
handkerchief for Xmas, Good-bye, dear Anne, and God bless 
you. Your true and affectionate Mother. 

The other letter is from America. We may imagine 
that Anne has written it to a girl comrade ; — 

Well Alice I do often be mad with myself for coming to this 
country. Some how I aint contented nor dont think I ever 
will untill I take a trip home. All the same I would not live 
over their now for anything. I have a very nice time Alice lots 
of money nice Clothes & having a good time. Alice We do have 
fun out here alright. I only wish you were out here. One thing 
you are just loosing your time over their if you have to work 
a little hard itself you get good money for your time. If you 
ever care to come write to me & I will send you what you know. 
I am thinking about getting married when I come back in Oct 
next. If I dont get Married in Oct I wUl go to Ireland the 
summer after. I guess I have enough said on the subject Alice 
we were at a great Ball last night going to another one tuesday 
night Alice their is were you would see style Balls dresses, it was 
fine & to see the yanky fellows in style. I wore a blue silk dress 
blue ribbon on my hair black velvet button high shoes my 



40 MY IRISH YEAR 

sister Maggie wore the same Annie was not in it As sh.e is living 
in tlie city Alice slie looks fine & us three is going to get our 
Pictures taken We will send you one. Maggie is talking 
about going to Ireland in the summer I dont know for sure. 
How is MoUie getting along ye like the ring I sent Poor Mollie 
I often think of her I sent her the ring the way she would 
have something belonging to me. I suppose everything is just 
the same around the house. I will close for want of paper. 

Well Alice I am got a real Yanky everone says it I changed 
greatly all for the better thank God I look fine. 



CHAPTER III 

LETTER TO AN IRISH FARMER 

My dear Michael, — Many people have a bad im- 
pression of your class. They think of the farmers of 
Ireland as people who are anxious to take much 
and reluctant to give anything. They think of them 
as ill-adapted to the struggle for an independent 
existence. They have the impression that the 
farmers are too fond of the poor mouth. I have 
found the farmers of Ireland a hard-working, cheerful, 
self-respecting body of men. They have one great 
lack — they look upon themselves as people who are 
badly-placed. " Look upon us," they say, " striving 
from daylight to dark. In a town you might have 
a nice situation and you need never dirty your 
hands." When I was meditating on this letter I 
walked round to see yourself and family, and found 
you, your wife, and your two sons shaking hay in 
your field. 'Twas a beautiful day, Michael, and 
your occupation was as exhilarating as a bicycle 
ride or a game of hurHng. The younger members 
of your family made no pretence — they thoroughly 
enjoyed the work. Anon came the little girl. We 
sat down on the ditch and had tea and pan-cakes. 
You returned to your grievance. A farmer's was 
an unsheltered, unremunerated hfe. You considered 
poor little Francis who was tossing the hay, and you 
thought you would make an effort to take him out 

41 



42 MY IRISH YEAR 

of such an existence. You would get a situation 
for the boy. He would have a clean house, a nice 
time, and need never dirty his hands. You thought 
a hundred a year would be an extraordinarily fine 
income. You did not know what your own income 
was, but you were sure it was not nearly a hundred 
per year — " no, nor the half of a hundred." There- 
upon I took out a pencil and made this sum in 
addition : — 

For pigs . . . . £60 

Calves . . . . . 12 
Milk (from creamery 30s. per 

month for 6 months) . . 9 
Eggs (100 per week for 7 

months) . . . . 11 4 

Poultry (6 flocks, 30 chickens) 2 5 

Turkeys . . . . 3 10 

Geese 1 10 

A young horse . . . 5 



So you have the hundred per year, Michael. Now 
you have practically no rent to pay — £7 for a house 
and over twenty acres of land, good and bad. The 
only provisions you buy are flour and bacon. Now 
take the case of the clerical person in Dublin whose 
state you envy. The rent of his bare house is not 
less than £20 per annum. He has to pay 8d. per 
stone for potatoes (you never boil less than four 
stone of potatoes). For cabbage that would not 
go with the dinner of one member of your family 
he has to pay 2d. or 3d. You do not know what 



MY IRISH YEAR 43 

it is to pay for milk by the week. You do not buy 
butter at lOd. or Is. per lb. You need never buy 
eggs. Potatoes and cabbage, butter, eggs and milk ; 
the staple of provision — you have them for nothing. 
You are free of rent,, that burthen of the artisan, the 
clerical, and the professional classes in Dubhn. You 
pay 9d. per lb. for bacon it is true, but if you really 
knew your own interest you would kill your pig 
and have pork all the year round. You buy flour, 
but you could grow half an acre of wheat, get it 
ground, and have again that strong and wholesome 
wheaten bread that we ate in our county a few 
years ago. Now, Michael, there is my calculation. 
If your children at school were taught a simple system 
of farm accounts you might feel a more independent 
man. And, believe me, Michael, that sense of in- 
dependence is worth something. 

When you think of the man " in the situation," 
the " clean-handed man," I suppose your mind is 
OD the clerk. Now let me contrast your position 
with his. Ill, well, or indifferent, he has to be at his 
business at a certain hour in the morning. He has 
not the content of knowing that his labour is fruitful 
for himself. No green or golden crop compensates 
his weariness. Take up the difference between his 
labour and yours, Michael — shut in from the air, 
the sunshine, and the good hours he labours at some 
tedious account or watches the hands of the office 
clock. He cannot stand away from his work and 
talk with the passer-by. He cannot break the tedium 
of the day by a meal with his wife and children. 

In every man there is a need for sunshine and 
variety of labour. The blue sky, the procession of 



44 MY IRISH YEAR 

clouds, the flowering bushes, the rich-smelling earth, 
is part of the health of man. Part of the health 
of the animal I may say, for you know, Michael, 
the horse that can look over the stable door and 
notice the passing things is healthier and more spirited 
than the horse shut up. You, Michael, have the 
smell of the bushes in the morning, the sight of the 
wide sky at night, and these things are something 
to you. Think of the Httle clerk shut up in the bank 
and then think of a day in the meadow when the 
body swings with the scythe, when one feels the 
strong tear of the grass, when the young fellows 
are talking and laughing around us, and the silent 
hawk hangs above. Then, Michael, we feel that 
we are men, and we are indeed on the top of the 
world. 

No, Michael, do not put young Francis into a 
situation. No, nor do not bend yourself to make a 
priest of him either. Priests are not to be made out 
of any casual member of the family. There is such a 
thing as a call to the priesthood. When the call is 
heard it will be time enough to discuss the possibility. 
We must have another piety, Michael. It should 
be pious for a man to have his farm in such order 
that it is a credit to himself, his family, and his 
country. It should be pious for a man to contrive 
so that his family is not scattered on the ways of the 
world. It should be pious for the sons to remain 
near the father, and the daughters near the mother. 
It should be a piety to know what is the nation, 
to make your labour and your family of service to 
the nation. Do you think of the clean and easy 
situation for Francis. It would be better for him, 



MY IRISH YEAR 45 

I think, to be a labourer here in his own district. 
A labourer, you say, " Never, while the beam of my 
roof holds." Very well. But a man could do well 
with a good house, an acre of ground, and the 
employment he could get about here. We begin 
to understand co-operation, Michael. It would be 
possible for an association of labourers to graze 
cattle and rear a few calves to sell with their pigs, 
and to have some dealing with the co-operative 
banks. And with good and intelligent labourers 
in the district, the landed men like yourself would 
be in a position to develop your farms. I assure you, 
you do not get a quarter of its value out of your 
land. For one thing, with intelligent labour in the 
district, you could have winter dairying. You could 
feed your cattle on root crops, and send milk to the 
creamery for the other six months of the year. At 
that time you would get more than 30s. per month 
for milk. You do not approve of farmers' sons 
becoming labourers. Does your wife approve of it ? 
I think the women approve. " Yes," said a woman 
to me, " if the boys would settle here, the girls 
would stay here too." You and your family of strong 
boys are practically idle in the winter. You have 
a creamery in your district, and it would be to every- 
one's advantage if milk could be supplied to it in 
the winter. Many farmers I know are thinking of 
winter dairying. Think it over and talk it over, 
it will soon become possible. 

Michael ; the whole of this country is depending 
on the labour of the man who has the land. The 
shopkeepers in the town, and the bank clerks behind 
the counter are dependants of yours. So are the 



46 MY IRISH YEAR 

Constabulary men, and the fellows in the big offices. 
Do not think of farming as a rude occupation, fit 
only for thick-necked boors. More than any other 
occupation, yours demands an all-round intelligence 
and an all-round training. I will give you a word 
to remember, Michael. That word is Science. This 
year you have sprayed your potatoes and have 
sprayed them thoroughly. You are putting lime 
in your fields and basic slag in your meadows. You 
are using fertihsers. What is behind these things 
is well worth understanding. The man who under- 
stands them is a more intelHgent man than your 
bank clerk or your District Inspector. The farmer 
who does not understand them is only a day labourer 
on the fields. You are making use of the means of 
improvement which the Department of Agriculture 
is bringing to your door. Make use of the training 
which it offers. Let your sons get some of this 
training. Here is young Francis with his fine head 
and intelligent eyes. Instead of letting the boy's 
mind run to America, instead of encouraging him to 
hang on the passage his poor little sister will send 
him, let the lad go for a session to the Agricultural 
College at Ballyhaise. 

Our ideas are changing, Michael, and in the new 
arrangement of opinion questions may be asked you. 
Are you really a good farmer, Michael ? Are the boys 
in your house farmers in the making ? Can your 
girl cook a fowl or make a dish to go with your bacon ? 
Is your house a credit to the district ? Are there 
any flowers in your front garden ? Is there anything 
of adornment about your house ? Do you know the 
names of even the commonest flowers ? Do you 



MY IRISH YEAR 47 

know of any other vegetable beside cabbage ? Do 
you know anything of fruit ? In other parts of the 
world the farmer can sit down in his dining-room 
to a dinner of more than one course. A wash-room 
or bath-room is part of his house. 

On the way from your house I passed a place where 
there were larch trees. The place has been sold to 
the tenants. You and some others have cut down 
the trees and left the ugly stumps in the ground. 
That act, Michael, was a sin against the beauty and 
health of your district. 

I blame you for such acts, and I blame you and 
your class for the constant litigation that disgraces 
the country. Meanwhile remember that you farmers 
are the body and bones of the Irish nation. Stick 
to the work. Contrive ways of improving your 
holding. Keep your children about you. Become 
prosperous, independent, and proud. 



CHAPTER IV 

SURVIVING MYTH AND CUSTOM 

Athlone, 
Monday, February \^th. 

Because lie was " afraid of the fairies " an agricultural labourer 
named Kilduff threw up an acre of land which he had secured 
under the Labourers' Act and upon which the Athlone District 
Council proposed to build a cottage for him. The plot is at 
Lacken, made memorable by Goldsmith's " Deserted Village," 
as containing the pool " the noisy geese " gabbled over, and on 
the lands of Mr Adamson, whose family held this famous spot 
in the poet's days. Kildufi's objection to the plot was that 
there was a " fort " on it which would have to be removed for 
his cottage, and "on no account would he interfere with the 
fairies' home," which, they knew, " one never had any luck after." 
At the meeting of the District Council last Saturday, Patrick 
Gilleran, ex-district councillor, applied for the plot upon which 
he intended to build a cottage. 

Mr Buckley. It is not a place to site a cottage on in the first place. 

Mr Smyth, J. P. Gilleran does not appear to be afraid of the 
fairies. 

Mr Tracey. He is going to enclose the fort. 

Mr RourJce. Build a wall around it 1 

Mr Tracey. Yes. 

Mr RourJce. Undoubtedly many people do not like to inter- 
fere with these old places. 

Mr Smyth. Kilduff gave it up because he did not like to inter- 
fere with the " fort." There are a great many people 
who do not like to cut them down. 

Mr Malone. And at the inquiry he swore that this house was 
so windy that a wild duck would get rheumatism in it. 

It was decided to give Gilleran the plot on his signing a bond 

48 




H W 



> r 



MY IRISH YEAR 49 

to pay the rent until such time as the District Council built a 
cottage there (Evening Telegraph, DubUn, February 19th, 1912). 

A " fort " or " rath " is an earthern fortification 
generally crowned by some old trees. The people say 
that the Danes built these forts, but I believe that the 
" Danes " in the English-speaking parts of the country 
stand for the De Dannans, who are the gods of the Irish 
Celts. The palaces of the fairies are thought to be 
under these forts, and in Oliver Goldsmith's country 
the man who would interfere with a fort is certainly one 
in a thousand. ..." What are the fairies," I asked 
a blind wanderer I met upon the road. I can still 
see his face filled with intensity of conviction. " The 
fairies," he said ; ' I will tell you what the fairies are. 
God moved from His seat, and when he turned round 
Lucifer was in it. Then Hell was made in a minute- 
God moved His hand and swept away thousands of 
angels. And it was in His mind to sweep away thou- 
sands more. ' God Almighty, stop ! ' said the angel 
Gabriel, ' Heaven will be swept clean out.' ' I'll 
stop,' said God Almighty ; ' Them that are in Heaven, 
let them remain in Heaven, them that are in Hell, 
let them remain in HeU, and them that are between 
Heaven and Hell let them remain in the air. And 
the angels that remained between Heaven and Hell 
are the Fairies.' " What he said was as true to 
the man as one of the Gospels. For those who 
have kept in touch with the GaeUc traditions it is 
necessary to create a mighty origin for the fairies, 
or, as they are called in Irish tradition the Sidhe.^ 
" Pease-blossom " and " Mustard-seed " are not 

^ Pronounced Shee. 



50 MY IRISH YEAR 

amongst the Irish Sidhe, whose names are the names 
of kings and queens. In parts of the country the 
Sidhe are diminished, but in other parts it is not 
forgotten that they are representative of great powers 
and dominions. They are the old gods of the Celts. 
The attitude of the people towards them is expressed 
in the charm that is uttered in Arran : — 

" We accept their protection, 
And we refuse their removal ; 
Their backs to us, 
Their faces from us, 
Thro' the death and passion 
Of Our Saviour Jesus Christ." ^ 

The part of the country where the Athlone District 
Council have authority is sophisticated enough, but 
even there the fairies are spoken of with respect. 
They are " The Good People," and it is wise to say 
little about them. It is remembered that sometimes 
they take away children, and sometimes newly- 
married brides. They delight in music, and often 
they carry off a good fiddler or piper to attend them 
in their revels under the rath. Music is communi- 
cated between fairies and mortals. The lovely dance 
tune known as the " Fairy Reel " is believed to have 
come straight out of the fairy world. On the other 
hand, it is known that mortal musicians have added 
to the fairy stock of tunes. I should say that in 
Oliver Goldsmith's county, that the only members 
of the fairy company individualised are the Lepre- 
chaun and the Banshee. The Leprechaun is only 
an artisan for the fairies. But he knows where 

1 Taken down by Eoin MacNeil, and given in " The Religious Songs 
of Connacht. " 



MY IRISH YEAR 51 

the crocks of gold are hidden. He is a very little 
fellow, and he is always engaged in his trade of shoe- 
making. If you are near a rath or an old castle you 
may hear the sound of his hammering. If you dis- 
cover the fellow, draw close to him, without making 
a sound that would betray you. If you are lucky 
you may be able to take him in your grasp. Then 
ask him where those crocks of gold are hidden. Insist 
upon his telling you, and do not let your mind be 
dissipated by his excuses. But in the end he will 
cheat you. He will say or do something that will 
distract your attention, and when you look again 
the Leprechaun will have disappeared. 

The Banshee is a tragic invention. She stays near 
a house and wails for the one who is about to die. 
Those who know how piercing it is to hear one 
" weep Irish " will realise what a terrible visitant 
the Banshee would be. In all respects this lone 
woman is like the " Keener " or mourner for the 
actual dead. Those who have looked upon her 
describe her as drawing a comb through her hair. 
She is probably tearing out her hair in the manner 
of the old mourners. The Banshee follows only the 
famihes of the " high Milisian race," that is the 
people who are entitled to have an " O " or a " Mac " 
before their names. And she only wails for those 
who are descendants of noble families. Many peasant 
families in Ireland can well claim noble descent, as 
practically all the native aristocracy who did not go 
over to France, Spain, or Austria were, in the phi'ase 
of a native historian, " Melted into the peasantry." 

The trees that crown the rath and the " lone " 
thorn bushes that grow in the fields are the only 



52 MY IRISH YEAR 

timber that have exemption in Ireland. The plough 
is never brought to the roots of the old bush, and 
the bill-hook is never turned against its branches. 
If a man cuts the bush in his field, misfortune will 
come upon his household. The privileges of the 
Church are not sufficient to protect one from the 
resentment of the beings who are connected with the 
bush. I have been told of a priest who had been 
given as a site for a chapel a piece on which a " lone " 
bush grew. He had it cut down. But he was never 
able to build his chapel upon that site, for the horses, 
drawing the materials, were stricken down when they 
came to the place where the bush had been. A 
student of folk-lore seeks a comrade for the spirit of 
the bush in the spirit of the well. I remember that 
in the story of the " Horned Witches," it is the spirit 
of the well tells the woman of the house how to baffle 
her evil visitors. There is httle folk-lore, however, 
current about wells. The most renowned of them 
have now the secure sanctity of religion. Consecrated 
by the name of some saint they draw thousands 
of pilgrims. Very characteristic of Ireland is the 
sight of holy wells with devotees beside them. The 
scene, perhaps, is in some desolate place with bare 
mountains for a background. Two or three wells may 
be together. In rigid attitudes the pilgrims are 
kneeling on flags beside the wells with great rosaries 
hanging from their hands. On bushes near are 
hanging rags, sticks, crutches, scapulars and rosaries 
— ^the offerings of those who have experienced rehef. 
People go to holy wells for cures for bhndness, lame- 
ness, nervous troubles, or they make the pilgrimage 
because of some vow made to insure the safety of the 



MY IRISH YEAR 5S 

SOD or daughter abroad in England, Scotland, or 
America. 

Some months ago I was at a celidh in the house of 
a well-oif farmer. We were seated round the fire 
talking about American letters, old-age pensions, and 
the prospects of land purchase, when a bewildered 
child came amongst us. He was undressed and had 
come down from the bedroom, and it was evident that 
he was walking in his sleep. " What is the matter 
with you, John ? " said one of the men present. 
" Hush," said his mother, " don't call him John, 
call him Owenie." The child's name was changed 
for the occasion, and until he was got back to bed, 
he was spoken of as " Owenie." The being before us 
was under an enigmatic power, and it would not be 
well to let that power have possession of an important 
thing — the child's real name. The attitude of the 
people showed a remembered custom, and the mystery 
then made helped me to realise an attitude often 
dwelt upon in folk-tales — notably in the one that 
narrates the death of Cuchulain — the necessity for 
withholding a person's real name. 

When John had been got back to bed I turned 
the conversation to remembered beliefs and customs. 
Were the children still forbidden to rob the nests of 
swallows ? Yes, for if the swallow's nest was robbed 
the cows would milk blood. The children were also 
forbidden to strike each other with a rod of the alder. 
Why ? The people said it was because the Cross was 
made of alder wood. But this explanation shows that 
the mjrth about the alder wood had been forgotten. 
Probably the swallows' nests are respected because 
of a tradition that makes them sacred as the bringers- 



54 MY IRISH YEAR 

in of summer. But apart from any tradition, the 
sight of a swallow on the ground is sufficient to inspire 
one with some dread ; for this dusky and savage little 
bird has the strangeness of something out of an un- 
known element. On seeing a wounded swallow the 
first feeUng of an instructed person would be a wish 
to keep away from it. 



II 

Odd individuals are credited with weird powers. 
A friend of mine, who is a medical man, is interested 
in a beUef wliich credits some peasant with the power 
of stopping bleeding by some spell, charm or occult 
influence. He tells of a valuable hunter that was 
injured in the open country in such a way as to cause 
excessive bleeding. Some peasants told the rider of 
the proximity of a man who could stop the bleeding. 
He was brought upon the scene. Everyone was 
turned away, and alone the man went through the 
ceremony. In a while the people were brought back ; 
the bleeding had been stayed. There is a remarkable 
and persistent tradition of horses being tamed by a 
spell whispered into their ear. The man who claims 
this power is called " The Whisperer." Part of the 
bargain that "The Whisperer " makes is that there 
shall be no witnesses to the operation. But Borrow, 
who refers to " The Whisperer " in two of his books, 
says nothing about the secrecy of the operation. 
When " Lavengro " was in Ireland as a youth he met 
one who had the power of " The Whisperer." The 
scene which he gives vividly is so appropriate to this 



MY IRISH YEAR 55 

chapter that I will relate it in Borrow's words. ^ It 
was a smith in Tipperary who had mysterious power. 

"Can you do this, agrah ? " said the smith, and he uttered a 
word which I had never heard before, in a sharp, pungent tone. 
The effect on myself was somewhat extraordinary ; a strange 
thrUl ran through me ; but with regard to the cob it was terrible ; 
the animal forthwith became like one mad, and reared and kicked 
with the utmost desperation. 

"Can you do that, agrah ? " said the smith. 

" What is it ? " said I, retreating, " I never saw the horse so 
before." 

" Go between his legs, agrah," said the smith, " his hinder 
legs " ; and he again showed his fury. 

" I dare not," said I, " he would kill me." 

" He would kill ye ? And how do you know that, agrah ? '' 

" I feel he would," said I, " something tells me so." 

" And it tells ye the truth, agrah ; but it's a fine beast, and it 
is a pity to see him in such a state. Is ogam an't leigeas'" ;^ 
and here he uttered another word in a voice singularly modified 
but sweet and almost plaintive. The effect of it was as 
instantaneous as that of the other, but how different. The 
animal lost all fury and became at once calm and gentle. The 
smith went up to it, coaxed and petted it, and made use of 
various sounds of equal endearment ; then turning to me, and 
holding out once more his grimy hand, he said, " And now you'll 
be giving me the Sassenach tenpence, agrah." 

I know an old man Hving in DubHn whose con- 
science is now really perturbed because he once made 
acknowledgment of unauthorised spiritual powers. 
He carried a charm from one crone to another. It 
appears that these charms are communicated not 
directly but through an intermediary, and this inter- 
mediary is a boy or girl too young to realise the 
significance of the words given them to repeat. The 

^ Lavengro. - 1 have the cure. 



56 MY IRISH YEAR 

speU is always in Irish. My friend performed the 
commission, and long afterwards he began to think 
of the words of the charm. One of the powers 
therein invoked was, " The king who would not obey." 
He knows that this occult phrase covers a reference to 
Lucifer. References to Lucifer or the pagan powers 
are not frequent in the charms still repeated in the 
Irish-speaking districts. These charms are mainly 
against disease, and the powers to whom appeal is 
miade are generally orthodox. In "The Religious Songs 
of Connacht," Dr Hyde mentions that 'Flaherty 
gives fifteen channs that he heard amongst the 
people in Connemara : "A charm for staunching 
of blood, a charm for ' rose ' or erysipelas, a charm 
against choking, two charms against a festering, a 
charm by which a mad dog is quelled, a charm against 
' Httle fever ' or neuralgia, a toothache charm, 
Mary's charm for women in child-bed, a charm said 
on going round with Brigit's Cross, a charm against 
want, Columcille's, or the hurting charm, the night- 
mare charm, the love charm, and a charm against the 
demons of the air." We imagine that the love charm 
would be the most valuable of these. No love charm 
is given in " The Religious Songs of Connacht " ; but 
our readers can find a very beautiful one in Lady 
Wilde's fine book, " Ancient Legends of Ireland." 

There are three festivals that commemorate ancient 
customs. The old festival of Samhain that is now 
synchronised with Hallow Eve, Saint Bridget's Day, 
which faUs on the 2nd February, and St John's Eve, 
which falls on 21st June. It is dangerous to be abroad 
on Hallow's Eve, but the girl who has the courage 
to look into a well at midnight will see the image of 



MY IRISH YEAR 57 

her future husband. If she has not the heart for this 
adventure she may learn his Christian name in this 
way ; she takes the peel of an apple unbroken, and 
hangs it over the door of her house. The first man 
who enters will have her husband's name. On St 
John's Eve they light great bonfires, and the young 
people dance and sing round them. A generation 
ago the ceremony had more significance. The people 
drove the cattle through the fire, and afterwards 
scattered the ashes over their fields. I was speaking 
to a priest who remembered the survivial of this 
custom in Donegal. His father and his mother 
carried out the ancient ceremonies, but it was under- 
stood that the young people would not pay any heed 
to the observances. On St Bridget's Day they cut 
the rushes, out of which are woven the St Bridget 
crosses. The rushes were placed under the table and 
the feast was spread upon it. The servant girl had 
gone outside. Now she knocked at the door and the 
woman of the house cried out in Irish, " Welcome, 
Bridget," she knocked three times, and three times 
the woman welcomed her as Bridget. Then she 
entered and sat down to the feast. Afterwards the 
St Bridget crosses were made. These are rushes 
plaited into the form of a swastika. In the West of 
Ireland and in the North they hang on the walls from 
one St Bridget's Day to another. May Eve is remem- 
bered in parts of the country as a time sacred to the 
Other People. Bowls of flowers used to be left out- 
side the houses on this occasion. On May Days, 
says the writer of an old account of Ireland, the 
people decked their houses with green boughs. 
This, says he, is from a fantastical conceit, for 



58 MY IRISH YEAR 

people expect that their store of cattle will be 
thereby increased. 

The fairy faith is gracious and imaginative, but it 
has also suggestions of a savage world. There have 
been odd cases in which persons suspected of being 
changelings have been cruelly treated. The creature 
thought to be impersonating the human child or the 
stolen woman is held over the fire. Ireland kept 
herself pure from the ferocious campaigns against 
witches that were inaugurated in the Puritan 
countries. But a belief in the possibility of witchcraft 
lingers amongst us. In Ireland witches are harmless 
enough ; the whole object of their spells apparently 
is to get the good of their neighbours churning. They 
reap the dew off the grass on the morning of the 1st 
May, and this action, with certain spells uttered, gives 
them their power. Those against whom their spells 
are directed may churn and churn all day but no 
substance comes on their milk, for the butter is drawn 
to the witches' churn. In conformity with primitive 
belief, iron is potent against witches and fairies. The 
worker in iron also has some magical powers. St 
Patrick invoked the might of God against " the spells 
of women, and of smiths and of Druids," and to this 
day, in certain parts of the country, the smith has the 
power to work a most evil spell. He turns his anvil 
against the person maledicted, and calls on the power 
of the devil. Generally the smith can be induced 
to withdraw his spell. 



CHAPTER V 

RELIGION IN POPULAR POETRY 

In the matter of a people's religion one need only be 
eager to know what is essential in it and what is 
characteristic. What is characteristic in the faith of 
the Irish peasantry can be distinguished without any 
profound intuition or observation, for they have 
expressed the religious side of their life in an abundant 
popular poetry, and the expression is now accessible 
to us in Dr Hyde's collection, " The Religious Songs 
of Connacht." These songs show a deep understand- 
ing of the sanctity of the things of the hearth, and a 
vivid realisation of the drama of the Passion. It is this 
realisation and this understanding give distinctiveness 
to the reUgion of the Irish Catholic peasantry. Dr 
Hyde took down this popular poetry from the people 
in the Irish speaking parts of the country ; it is no 
longer current in the districts where English is now 
spoken. Nevertheless one can say that the contents 
of Dr Hyde's two volumes represents the religious 
feeling of the whole of Catholic Ireland. 

For people in isolated cabins the pause of night is 
significant. At last the fire is " raked," the burning 
turf is covered with ashes that the seed of the fire may 
be preserved till the morning. The person who 
" rakes " the fire says : — 

" I save this seed of fire to-night, 
Even so may Christ save me ; 

59 



60 MY IRISH YEAR 

On the top of the house let Mary, 
In the middle let Bridget be. 

Let eight of the mightiest angels, 
Round the throne of the Trinity, 
Protect this house and its people 
Till the dawn of the day shall be." 

The making of the bed is commemorated in another 
religious poem : — 

" I make this bed 
In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, 
In the name of the night we were conceived. 
In the name of the day we were baptised. 
In the name of each night and each day. 
Each angel that is in Heaven. 
' What art thou saying, Mother 1 ' 
' Another little prayer, agra.^ 
' Good is thy prayer to be said, Mother.' " 

There are many versions of the prayers to be said 
on lying down, and on rising in the morning. They 
are known from Arran and the West of Ireland, to 
Lochaber in Scotland. In all of them is poetry for 
in all the significance of life is realised. Sometimes 
a more ancient poetry is remembered as in this 
benediction said on milking a cow : — 

" The blessing of Mary and the blessing of God, 
The blessiag of the Sun and the Moon on her road. 
Of the Man in the East and the Man in the West, 
And my blessing with Thee, and be thou blest." 

The names most cherished in Irish Catholic house- 
holds are the Blessed Virgin's and St Bridget's. In 
Ireland and Scotland where Gaelic is spoken, the 
name of Bridget is especially venerated. In Gaelic 
tradition she is the foster-mother of Christ. It is 



MY IRISH YEAR 61 

possible that the saint has taken over some of the 
homage paid to the older Bridget of Pagan Ireland, 
who was patron of the poets, and whose name signifies 
" a fiery dart." The name of the Blessed Virgin is 
dwelt upon at all times. It is characteristic of Gaelic 
piety that there should be a distinction between the 
name of Mary as given to the Virgin, and the name 
Mary as given to a woman. " Mwire " is the sacred 
name, and " Maurya " the familiar name. Into the 
drama of the Passion the Irish people have projected 
their customs, their history and their temperament. 
The part of Mary the Mother has been the subject of 
intense meditation. The noblest poem in " The 
Religious Songs of Connacht " commemorates the 
Passion from Mary's side : — 

" Wteu the Virgin had heard Him 
And His sorrowful saying 

(Ochone agus ochone, !), 
She sprang past His keepers 
To the three of His slaying 

(Ochone agus ochone, !). 

' What fine man hangs there 
In the dust and the smother ? ' 

(Ochone agus ochone, !) 
' And do you not Icnow Him ? 
He is your Son, Mother ! ' 

(Ochone agus ochone, !) 

They cast Him down from them 
A mass of limbs bleeding 

(Ochone agus ochone, !). 
' There now He is for you ; 
Now go to your keening ' 

(Ochone agus ochone, !)." 



62 MY IRISH YEAR 

" There go to your keening." The words may have 
been used by a deputy in Connacht or Munster as he 
threw down to the mourners some young man " a 
mass of Hmbs bleeding." It is related to the people's 
lives, this story of the Child born in hardship, betrayed 
in His manhood, mocked at and crucified. The 
present generation in Ireland experienced something 
of the long subjection of their race. And this sense 
of being dominated by a powerful and worldly class 
must have been stronger as the generations go back. 
Nevertheless, subjection has not created in their 
religious poetry that overpowering sense of pity that 
we expect to find in the memorials of another religious 
people — the Russians. In these religious songs the 
prevailing mood is kindliness. Fortunately for our 
meaning the word " kind " has also reference to 
blood relationships. These loved and venerated 
figures have been adopted into the Gaelic clan. 

" Remember those from whom you sprang. 
Strive earnestly on their behalf," 

cries David O'Bruadar in his poem to the Virgin. 
At the root of this religious poetry there is that 
which is at the root of the good manners of the Irish 
peasantry — a sense of equality that does not allow 
either condescension or servility. As the congrega- 
tion leaves the chapel a man or woman will turn 
round and say in his homely speech : " Farewell, 
Christ, farewell, Mary. The apostles keep me till I 
come again." 

Strangers in Ireland have been led to comment 
upon the fidelity with which the people fulfil the 
obligation of hearing Mass. In Dublin, on Sundays 




A MADONNA OF THE WEST. 
(From -in oil painting bj' Beatrice Elvery in the possession of Mr. C. P.Curran.) 



MY IRISH YEAR 63 

or on holidays, the churches are filled to the doors. 
But it is in country districts that one sees the typical 
Irish congregations. The gathering at the Chapel 
has some of the characteristics of a public assembly 
of which the priest is president. In an interval of 
the service he makes announcements of this or that 
meeting to be held outside the chapel after Mass. 
From the altar he speaks to the people of the necessity 
for spraying potatoes or hastening land purchase. 
The attitude of the people is naturally religious even 
though these secular affairs are glanced at. After 
Mass the people attend to the speaker from the Party, 
from the Agricultural Organisation Society, or from 
the Gaelic League. In well-living Catholic households 
private devotion is added to the public devotion of a 
Sunday. At night one may be going by a roadside 
cabin ; there is a light in the window, and as one 
passes one hears the recital of prayer, the grave 
responses, the long recitation of a litany. Within a 
family are offering up a rosary. The attitude of the 
people is consistently devout. A woman with a 
shawl across her head is mounting a car. Because 
she is going on a journey, she makes the sign of the 
cross and bends her head for a moment. 

Their religion has never made the people bigots or 
persecutors. Because they have religious connections, 
certain people are ready to think of them as " priest 
ridden." In " The Religious Songs of Connacht," 
there are pieces to show how well the Irish Catholics 
can detect and satirise worldliness or avarice in 
ministers of reUgion. They have intimations of a 
spiritual world, but these do not leave them " poisoned 
with piety." The religion of the Irish people is part 



64 MY IRISH YEAR 

of their existence, and they Hve with it easily and 
gladly. The gaiety of their spiritual life is in this 
little song : — 

" A fragrant prayer upon the air, 

My cLiild taught me. 
Awake there, the morn is fair, 

The birds sing free. 
Now dawns the day, awake and pray, 

And bend the knee. 
The Lamb who lay beneath the clay. 

Was slain for thee." 



CHAPTER VI 

SONGS, STORIES AND CONVERSATIONS 

Sixty years ago the people of this part of the country 
were in possession of a medium along which was 
passed the song of yesterday, the poem made five 
hundred years ago, the story that has existed for a 
thousand years. They spoke the Irish language. 
The child who went to our first National school, left 
a house in which traditional poetry, songs and stories 
were known, with Ossianic lays and traditional Irish 
history. No mse and humane system of bilingual 
instruction was permitted in the schools. The child 
was forced to read a language he had never heard 
spoken, and a teacher was forbidden to enlighten his 
mind by an explanation in the language that was 
familiar to both. The Board of National Education 
was bent upon destroying the Irish language. And 
the people agreed to second the effort of the Board. 
At home it was almost a religious obligation not to 
let the child hear a word of Irish. The language 
was being attacked in the school and in the home. 
Then came the famine of 1846-7. The Ireland that 
survived that unimaginable disaster was like a person 
who had received a blow on the head. Memory was 
shattered. 
I knew two men who were survivors from the period 

V. 65 



66 MY IRISH YEAR 

before the famine. I remember that one was con- 
stantly making notes in Irish, and that he had manu- 
scripts in his house. No one gave him any attention, 
and when he died his manuscripts were burned.^ 
The other old man Hved down to a time when I began 
to take any interest in the tradition by these strange 
elders. He must have been a scholar in his day, for 
the poetry in Irish which he liked to repeat was 
always some of MacHale's translations of Moore's 
Irish songs. He would also repeat passages from the 
Irish version of the " Iliad." My friend was satirised 
rather than respected by the peasants. I imagine 
that the first man had all the lore which Carleton tells 
us that his father possessed. " All kinds of charms, 
old ranns or poems, old prophecies, religious super- 
stitions, tales of pilgrims, miracles and pilgrimages, 
anecdotes of blessed priests and friars, revelations 
from ghosts and fairies." 

The people are Uvely minded and they are con- 

^ Sixty years ago quantities of manuscripts must have been extant 
in peasant houses. Doctor Hyde in his " Literary History of Ireland " 
tells how a friend of his, travelling in the Co. Clare, found children 
tearing three manuscripts to pieces. The manuscripts were sent to 
Dr Hyde. One of them was about one hundred years old, and 
contained a saga called "The Love of Dubhlacha for Mongan." 
M. d'Arbois de Joubainville had searched the libraries for this story, 
and Pr. Kuno Meyer and Mr Alfred Nutt considered it of the highest 
value as elucidating the psychology of the ancient Irish. Dr Hyde 
quotes a letter that he received from a peasant. " 1 could read many 
of the Irish Fenian (Ossianic) tales and poems that was in my father's 
manuscripts, he had a large collection of them. I was often sorry 
for letting them go to loss, for I could not copy the 2\j^th of them." 
Another peasant wrote : " About twenty years since I was able to 
tell two dozen of Ossians Irish poems and some of Rafterys' and more 
Rymes composed by others, but since then no one has asked me to tell 
one Irish story at a wake or by a fireside sine the old people died. 
Therefore when I had no practise I forgot all the stories I had." 



MY IRISH YEAR 67 

tinuously making mental interest for themselves, but 
the person who comes amongst them seeking for 
traditional lore will be apt to think that their imagina- 
tive hfe is as flat as their natural landscape. The 
heroic romances and the folk romances have sur- 
vived only in fragments and odd references. The 
poetry represented by the " Love Songs of Connacht " 
and " The Religious Songs of Connacht " have been 
lost in the change from the Irish to the English 
language. But the people are eager about songs and 
stories. Everybody except some odd anti-social 
beings wants to know songs, and the most acceptable 
present one could make to a country boy or girl is 
a book of songs that would not be unfamiliar. In 
every cottage there is a song-book, and the young men 
buy the ballads that are hawked about in broad 
sheets. One can hardly describe as traditional the 
songs known here ; only a few come from former 
generations. Some have been learned from broad 
sheets, some have been brought back from England 
by harvesters, and some have been composed by 
known people. Of the songs which the people of the 
Midlands possess, the most interesting to my mind 
are those which show some Gaelic influence. The 
other day I took down a fragment of a song which 
has the Gaelic structure. The original was evidently 
popular about the transition period, and the person 
who translated it was familiar with the Irish and not 
familiar with the English forms of versification : — 

" I'd spread my cloak for you, young lad, 
If 'twas only the breadth of a farthen, 
And if your mind was as good as your word, 
In troth it's you I'd rather ; 



68 MY IRISH YEAR 

In dread of any jealousy, 
And before we go any farther. 
Hoist me up to the top of the hill, 
And show me Carricknabauna." 

In Irish verse the rhyme is assonantal ; that is, it 
consists in the agreement of vowel sounds ; the vowels 
being strongly pronounced, there is abundance of such 
combinations as " bathe " and " lave," " thought " 
and " fault," " autumn " and " water." A whole 
poem is often rhymed on a single vowel sound. In 
this fragment the correspondences are in " farthen," 
" rather," " farther." This suggests an attempt to 
rhyme the stanza on the broad " a " in " bauna." 
Possibly the whole of the original was rhymed on 
this sound. The Gaelic structure is completely 
achieved in a ballad which I have often heard sung 
on the roadway and by the fireside, " The Lament for 
Hugh Reynolds, who was hanged for stealing away 
a Young Lady." ^ 

" My name it is Hugh Reynolds, I come of honest parents ; 
Near Cavan I was born as plainly you may see, 
By loving of a maid, one Catherine MacCabe, 
My life has been betrayed — she's a dear maid to me. 

The country were bewailing my doleful situation, 
But still I'd expectation this maid would set me free ; 
But oh ! she was ungrateful, her parents proved deceitful, 
And though I loved her faithful, she's a dear maid to me. 

Young men and tender maidens, throughout the Irish nation, 
Who hear my lamentations, I hope you'll pray for me ; 
The truth I will unfold, that my precious blood she sold. 
In the grave I must lie cold — she's a dear maid to me. 

^ After the first stanza, instead of assonance, rhyme is used, but 
according to the Gaelic rule of interlinear correspondence. 



MY IRISH YEAR 69 

For now my glass is run, and my hour it is come, 

And I must die for love, and height of loyalty ; 

I thought it was no harm, to embrace her in my arms. 

And take her from her parents — she's a dear maid to me. 

Adieu my loving father, adieu my tender mother, 
Farewell my dearest brother, who has suffered sore for me ; 
With irons I'm surrounded, in grief I lie confounded. 
By perjury unbounded — she's a dear maid to me. 

Now I can say no more, to the law-board I must go, 
There to take the last farewell of my friends and countrie ; 
May the angels shining bright, receive my soul this night, 
And convey me into Heaven to the blessed Trinity." 

In the traditional songs a distinctive rhythm is as 
evident as a distinctive structure. This distinctive 
rhythm is based upon Irish music. The other day I 
took down this fragment. 

" When we lived together each other we did adore, 
This green little island we wandered it o'er and o'er ; 
We worked at our trade and our earnings we spent quite free, 
But now you have left me. Mo Drahareen oge mo chree.i 

And now I am left like a sorrowful bird of the night. 
The earth and its pleasures no more can afford me delight ; 
The dark narrow grave is the only sad refuge for me. 
Since I lost my heart's darling, Mo Drahareen oge me chree." ^ 

I heard it in the Midlands, but it must have been 
brought from the West. Its rhythm is identical 
with that of a version of an Irish poem given in the 

^ Dear young brother of my heart. 

- Thomas Moore may be said to have brought Gaelic rhythms into 
English verse, and through Moore they have come into the verse of 
Shelley, Byron and Swinburne. But before Moore's day a Gaelic 
rhythm has occurred — it is in Lady Nairn's " Lament for Culloden." 
I do not know if the ''^ Lament for Culloden" had a Gaelic original — 
it is probably written with the memory of Gaelic music. 



70 MY IRISH YEAR 

" Oxford Book of English Verse," " The Outlaw of 
Lough Lene." 

The people like a literary flavour in their songs. 
" No good ballads are made now," said a countryman 
to me ; " sure, the people haven't the language." 
His own language was splendid, being vigorous and 
close to the sod, and this was his idea of poetic diction. 
In the song a lady is making a proposal of marriage 
to a country boy : — 

" Dear Willie, you'll roll in great splendour, 
With lords, dukes and earls of great fame, 
And you'll correspond with these nobles. 
And of course you will equal the same." 

I remember that the song was sung to me by a 
Cavan fowl-buyer, as we both traversed the O'Reilly 
country in the fowl-buyer's van. This other song 
that he gave me was native to the spot : — 

" It was near Southwell fair castle this young man was bred. 
And his parents they reared him without fear or dread ; 
For good education none could him excel, 
And his last declaration I am now going to tell. 

It being a fair morning I heard people say, 
To the sweet county Leitrim he straight took his way, 
Where Humes, the bloody traitor with his armed band 
Opposed valiant Reilly and caused him to stand. 

Like Hercules, undaunted, he did them oppose, 
But being far from his friends, in the midst of his foes, 
And having no armour, no sword and no shield. 
At length valiant ReiUy was forced for to yield. 

The groves of Killeshandra no more they'll be green. 
Nor the warbling fine thrushes no more shall they sing, 
And the trout in Lough Oughter no more they shall spawn. 
Since the downfall of Reilly called Paddy Shan Baun." 



MY IRISH YEAR 71 

That there is only one classical name in this song 
is a matter for surprise. Ballads of this kind are 
generally stuffed with such names as Telemachus, 
Polyphemus, Hector, Orpheus, Dido, Helen. The 
fashion must be over now, for the other day in a 
cottage I heard a delightful parody of the older 
ballads. I cannot find it now. Instead of it, I find 
in my collection of Midland songs a version of the 
Scots ballad " Edward." Not as poetry, but as a 
momento of the period of " Small swords " and 
" Free lands," and as a souvenir of an unsuspected 
literary commerce it is interesting. 

" What blood is that on your small sword ? 
Come, son, pray tell it unto me. 
That's the blood of my brother John, 
And a fair lady. 

What came between you and your brother John 1 

Come, son, pray tell it imto me. 
About the cutting down of a pretty little twig, 

That was growing to become a tree. 

What will you do when your father comes home '? 

Come, son, pray tell it unto me. 
I'll put my foot on yon ship board, 

And sail from this covmtry. 

And what will you do with your pretty race mare ? 

Come, son, pray tell it unto me. 
I'll take the saddle from off her back. 

She'll race no more for me. 

What will you do with your pretty pack of hounds ? 

Come, son, pray tell it unto me. 
I'll take the collars from off their necks, 

They'll hunt no more for me. 



72 MY IRISH YEAR 

What will you do with your children three 1 

Come, son, pray tell it unto me. 
I'll leave them with you, dearest Mother, he says, 

To keep you company. 

What will you do with your house and free lands ? 

Come, son, pray tell it unto me. 
I'll leave them with you, dearest Mother, he says, 

To maintain my children three. 

What will you do with your pretty little wife ? 

Come, son, pray tell it unto me. 
She'U put her foot on yon ship board. 

And sail along with me." 

The songs most characteristic of the Midlands are 
the poHtical ballads which the people call " Secret 
songs " or " Treason songs." They are as full of 
obscure references as a symbolist poem. Indeed, 
their unfailing symbolism is their most noticeable 
characteristic. In the songs of every subject people 
there must be an enigmatic expression. But the 
obscurity of our political songs is due to another 
motive besides the practical one of concealing a 
hope or an intention ; one perceives in them that 
bias which a French historian has detected in the 
Irish mediaeval philosophers : " The Celtic partiality 
for the rare, the difficult, the esoteric : strange 
combinations of words and ideas ; enigmas, acrostics, 
occult languages, cryptography." Here is a ballad 
which is typical of the older political songs. It was 
given to me by a peasant in the County Longford ^ : — 

^ I should say that the last verse was an interpolation. The song 
is older than O'Connell's epochs for ''the gardener" and "the 
huntsman " stand for the Jacobite deliverer who will come from across 
the water. There must have been an Irish original, because the term 
" deer '' for the outlanders is palpably a translation of an opprobrious 
epithet which in Irish is applied to the stag. 



MY IRISH YEAR 78 

" I planted a garden of the laurel so fine, 
In hopes to preserve it for a true love of mine ; 
By some treason or storm the roots did decay, 
And I'm left here forlorn by my darling's delay. 

This garden's gone wild for the want of good seed ; 
There's nought growing in it but the outlandish weed, 
Some nettles and briars and shrubs of each kind ; 
Search this garden all over, not a true plant you'll find. 

In one of those gardens a violet doth spring, 
'Tis preserved by a Goddess and wore by a King ; 
It blooms in all seasons, and 'tis hard to be seen ; 
There's none fit to wear it but a Prince or a Queen. 

I'll send for a gardener to France or to Spain, 
That wUl cultivate those gardens and sow the true grain, 
That wUl banish those nettles and the wild ^veeds away ; 
Bring a total destruction on them night and day. 

This garden's invaded this many a year, 
By hundreds and thousands of the outlandish deer. 
With their horns extendmg they are overgrown ; 
They thought to make Ireland for ever their own. 

I'll send for a huntsman that soon will arrive, 
With a stout pack of beagles to hunt and to drive 
Over highlands and lowlands, through cold, frost and snow, 
No shelter to shade them wherever they go. 

Now to conclude and to finish my song. 
May the Lord send some hero, and that before long ; 
May the Lord send some hero of fame and renown ; 
We'll send George to Hanover and O'Connell we'll crown." 

" The oul' men who remembered the battle of 
Granard used to cry tears down when I used to sing 
them that song," said the man who gave it to me. 
I could well believe him. Such songs may not 
appeal to the practical will, but they reach the im- 



74 MY IRISH YEAR 

aginative memory. They have this strangeness : 
they touch the heart of an Irish person in Ireland, 
as the songs of his own country would touch the heart 
of an exile. The newspapers are now bringing 
actuality into the conflict, and the old convention 
of the political songs is being destroyed. But still, 
the street ballads sings of Ireland under the name of 
" Granuaile " and " Shan Van Vocht." i 

Every piper and fiddler on the roads of Ireland 
knows the " Royal Blackbird," and if you ask them 
for it, you will hear a tune to remember. The music 
is hard to associate with defeat, it is so beautiful and 
proud ; nevertheless it celebrates the Stuart cause. 
The words that go with the music make another 
" secret song " : — 

" On a fair summer morning of soft recreation, 
I heard a fair lady a-making a moan 
With sighing and sobbiag and sad lamentation, 
A-saying, " My Blackbird most royal is flown. 
My thoughts do deceive me. 
Reflections do grieve me, 
And I am overwhelmed with sad misery. 
Yet if Death should blind me, 
As true love inclines me, 
My Blackbird I'll seek out wherever he be. 

Once in fair England my Blackbird did flourish, 
He was the chief flower that in it did spring, 

Prime ladies of honour his person did nourish, 
Because that he was the true son of a King. 

^ To the Irish mind it is natural that a symbolic speech should go 
with the announcement of National strivings. William Blake is 
certainly Irish vvheii he speaks in the prophetic books of Albion and 
Jerusalem, of Erin, France and America, and the old men by an Irish 
fireside would be kindled by some of his esoteric passages. 



MY IRISH YEAR 75 

But this false fortune, 

Which still is uncertain, 
Has caused the parting between him and me. 

His name I'll advance, 

In Spain and in France, 
And I'll seek out my Blackbird wherever he'll be. 

In England my Blackbird and I were together 

When he was still noble and generous of heart. 
And woe to the time when he first went from hither, 
Alas ! he was forced from thence to depart. 

In Scotland he's deemed. 

And highly esteemed. 
In England he seemed a stranger to be. 

Yet his name shall remain. 

In France and in Spain, 
All bliss to my Blackbird wherever he be. 

It is not the ocean can fright me with danger, 
For though like a Pilgrim I wander forlorn, 
I may still meet with friendship from one that's a stranger, 
Much more than from one that in England was born. 

Oh, Heaven so spacious ! 
* To Britain be gracious, 

Though' some there be odious to him and to me. 

Yet joy and renoun, 

And laurel shall crown, 
My Blackbird with honour wherever he be." 

One evening, in a Longford cottage, when the 
music of the " Royal Blackbird " had been played 
and the verses repeated, a man told me a story of 
Lord Edward Fitzgerald. Since then in my mind, 
a gallant name is set to that gallant music. Lord 
Edward was amongst the organisers of the Insur- 
rection of 1798, but he was struck down before the 
outbreak. He belonged to a family that was at the 
head of the Irish aristocracy, and he had married 



76 MY IRISH YEAR 

the mysterious protegee of Madame de Genlis, 
Pamela, whom some thought to be the daughter of 
Phihp Egahte. 

The story told of the meeting of Pamela and Lord 
Edward, and, as related, it had the simplicity of the 
folk- tale and some of its charming turns. When he 
was a young man Lord Edward heard much of the 
lewdness of London. For a long time he did not 
credit the stories. He thought they were made up 
to discredit the people of London. More and more 
the stories oppressed him, and at last he decided 
to go in person and find out if London was really 
depraved. He went over. One night he put on a 
disguise, and went down a very evil street. Now, 
a lady in Paris had also been oppressed by such tales 
of wickedness. She had come to London, bringing 
her aunt. They had taken lodgings. One night 
the young lady disguised herself and went into the 
ill street. Like Lord Edward, she was concerned 
to discover or deny the depravity. Its bad report 
had brought Lord Edward and herself into the same 
street. The lady was disguised as an old beggar- 
woman. 

Maybe she was wishful to know what sort was the 
young man who was in the wicked street at an ill 
hour. *' A mhic,^'' said she, " would you help an old 
woman to such a number ? " Lord Edward offered 
his arm. She did not take it. They went down the 
street together. Lord Edward was very watchful, 
being in such a street and he noticed that the woman 
kept her hand from him. " Give me your hand," 
said he, but still she kept her hand away. Then he 
snatched her hand. It was the hand of a young 



MY IRISH YEAR 77 

girl. " Who are you," said he. The girl ran from 
him, and let herself into a house. " To-morrow 
I'm going to Paris with my aunt," she said. 

" The next day Lord Edward went to Paris. When 
he woke up in the hotel he asked what sport there 
was in the town. He was told that there would be 
a great ball that night in the Royal Palace. Lord 
Edward went to the ball, and the first one he saw 
among the dancers was the girl who had disguised 
herself. The moment she saw him she asked a lady 
to take her place in the dance, and she came over to 
him. It wasn't one hand she gave him this time. 
She gave him her two hands. 

"He used to be out at night drilling the people 
with Wolfe Tone. She never said, ' Edward, where 
were you last night ? ' though she knew it would 
turn out bad work for him. His mother used to be 
very fond of her. She was so fond of her that she 
used to take the young woman to sleep on her lap. 
But after the death of Lord Edward the mother 
turned altogether against the young wife. She was 
very lonesome then. She had three children. She 
left Ireland, bringing her children with her, and no 
one had any account of them ever after." 

In this tale the people are of our world. Beside 
it I will put a story in which some of the characters 
are of the strange kingdom of the sea. The tale 
does not belong to our county ; it was told to myself 
and some others by a priest who had come amongst 
us from the kingdom of Kerry. 

Iveragh, in West Kerry, opens out of the Atlantic 
ocean. Once upon a time a boat was coming in from 
the fishing. The anchor was let down, and the men 



78 MY IRISH YEAR 

found they could not draw it up again. Lots were 
taken as to who should dive to release the anchor. 
The lot fell on the one who had let it down. He 
was " Clusach " O'Falvey, a youth noted for his 
exploits on the land. He was a great runner, and 
the best in the district at the game of hurling. 
O'Falvey went into the depths of the sea. 

This was the reason why the anchor could not be 
drawn up. Its swing had forced the door of a palace 
under the waves. There was a lady there, and one 
of her eyes had been put out by the stroke of the 
anchor. O'Falvey entered the palace ; he was held 
by the lady as an eric (compensation) for the loss 
of her eye. All sorts of tempting viands were offered 
him, but O'Falvey declined to partake. He knew 
that any of the food would lessen his desire to return 
to the land. He told the sea-fairy that there was 
one business to which he was bound, and he gave 
her his word that he would return to the sea when 
that business was accomplished. She released him 
then, and O'Falvey went back to his comrades. I 
do not know that he told his adventure, but I know 
that he had no inclination to leave the world of wind 
and light. He did not abide by his promise. He 
no longer went fishing. He knew that the fairy had 
power over the element, and he made no approach 
to the sea. 

One day the young men of Iveragh were playing 
at hurley. O'Falvey struck the ball. So great was 
the force of his stroke that it drove the ball as far 
as the bare strand. O'Falvey made after the ball. 
Striking it before him, he headed back to the players. 
He had forgotten his dread of the waves in the rush 



MY IRISH YEAR 79 

of the game. But now the sea Hfted itself up, as 
a great crest of waves, and came after the man. 
The runner was too swift for the first line of water. 
But the sea took the ball before it drew back to 
gather force. A second time the sea rose up. With 
mighty power the waves came after the running 
man. This time the waves swept the hurley from 
his hand. Again the sea drew back to gather force. 
Each time the waves had gained something from 
the man. And now, with its last and mightiest 
impulse, the sea came after him. Fleet as a deer, 
O'Falvey ran for his naked life. The crest of the 
sea broke — the outer waves surrounded him — 
O'Falvey was taken by the sea. 

It was with his comrades around him that he went 
back to the sea. Before he went below the waves 
he promised to send a token every year to the people 
on the land. For fourteen years the token came, 
a half-burnt sod of turf. Then it ceased to come 
on the waves, and the people knew that " Clusach " 
O'Falvey had lost his attachment to the upper world. 
Since that time the sea has covered a portion of the 
land of Iveragh. 

The people have no sense of historic time. They 
say, " St Patrick and St Colum were going through 
the country, and at that time Farral Markey's grand- 
father lived on the Island." Here is the tale of how 
the fair was established at Ballinalea. Saint Patrick 
was passing through the village, and he called at a 
house for a drink of milk. " I'll have to give you the 
child's share," said the woman of the house, " for 
the times are very scarce since Orangeism broke out 
in this part of the country." " I'U not take any of 



80 MY IRISH YEAR 

the milk, my poor woman," said Saint Patrick, 
" and I'll give you a direction that will be for the 
increase of your store. When next Tuesday comes 
walk down as far as the big tree. And if you meet 
a man coming towards you it will be for your luck. 
Do what he will tell you." That day week, when 
she went towards the big tree, the first person the 
woman met was a man driving a cow. He told her 
to drive the beast into her own byre. And that's 
how the first fair came to Ballinalea. 

The heroic tales that are gathered round Finn and 
Cuchulain have been forgotten by the people of this 
place. Finn's name is remembered, but the hero 
has become a big eater and an extravagant har. 
The other day I heard a story about the Gobaun 
Saor. He is out of the very oldest cycle of stories, 
for he was the Smith and Builder for the gods. In 
every part of the country stories are current con- 
cerning the Gobaun Saor and his son. They generally 
relate the stratagem by which the elder procured a 
wise wife for the simple-minded young man. Some 
of these tales are finely told in a book composed by 
a real Shanachie — Miss Ella Young's " Celtic Wonder 
Tales." " Do you know how the Gobaun Saor got a 
wife for his son ? " said I to a story-teller. " I do," 
said he. Thereupon he told me an anecdote not given 
in Miss Young's book. " There were three women 
amongst the neighbours that might suit the son, 
and the old Gobaun brought the three of them into 
his house. He put the whole of his treasure into a 
chest and he let the women open it. " You'd be a 
long time spending all that's there," said the first 
woman. " With all that under your hand you'd 




AN IRISH FOLK-TALE. 
(From :i rough sketch by Jlr. E. A. Morrow. By permission of the artist.) 



MY IRISH YEAR 81 

have an easy time," said the second woman. " Well," 
said the third woman, " as much as there's in it, if 
you didn't keep adding to it, it would soon go." The 
Gobaun Saor took that woman by the hand and 
brought her to sit down by the fire, and it was to 
her that he married his son. 

In Longford the stories told are mainly humorous 
and satirical, but in Cavan — the next county — 
stories used to be current that had a gleam of strange- 
ness in them. One that I remember is illustrated 
for me by the figure of a woman at a quern. In 
ancient Ireland it was the bondswoman's duty to 
grind corn with the quern-stone. A quern-stone 
suggests remote times, but in some parts of Ireland 
this primitive mill has come down to recent times. 
I have never seen anyone working a quern, but I 
have seen a quern-stone in the County Cavan. It 
was a woman in Cavan who told me this story, and she 
related it as having happened in her own family. 
The house she lived in was the scene of the story. 
The people of the house used to find that the corn 
left in the haggard was ground for them overnight. 
At first, I think, only a little corn was ground, for the 
work was done while there was light. Then they 
used to leave a candle lighted in the haggard, and a 
great deal of corn was ground. They never caught 
sight of the person who used to work the quern. 
The people of the house agreed to watch, and they 
made a window that looked into the haggard. One 
night they saw the person who ground the corn. 
There was a strange woman turning the quern-stone. 
She was bare naked. When daylight came the 
woman went away. 



82 MY IRISH YEAR 

The people of the house were anxious to do some- 
thing for the woman. The young man went to the 
town and bought a silk dress. They laid the silks 
beside the quern. They watched through the window 
again. The woman came in and sat down by the 
quern. Then she saw the silk dress and she put it 
on her. She sat at the quern again and ground corn 
for a while. She looked down at herself. Said she, 
" Silk to the elbows ; and I grinding at the quern." 
She stood up then and went out ; she was never seen 
again. 

The woman who told me that story used to say 
that when the hens murmured on the roost they were 
telling each other where the Danes hid their treasures 
after their defeat at Clontarf . In that part of Ireland 
a good deal of folk-lore centres round the Danes 
and their treasures. It was the Danes, they say, 
who had the secret of the Heather Ale. Stevenson 
has made a baUad about the Heather Ale, giving the 
secret to the Picts, I think, and in his truly Gaelic 
book, " The Lost Pibroch," Neil Munro has a fine 
story on the same theme. In the Scots story the 
secret is held by a single Gaehc clan. The " Danes " 
of the Cavan story-teller are connected with the 
Scandinavian invaders only by a piece of pseudo- 
history. In English-speaking districts of Ireland, 
" Danes," I think, equates " De Danaan," the gods 
or culture people of the Irish Celts. It has this 
significance only in places where the Irish name for 
the Scandinavian people (" Lochlannach ") has been 
forgotten. If I am right, the woman's reference to 
the fowls would be the last words of an old Celtic 
tradition. 



MY IRISH YEAR 83 

My mind is carried on to another story I heard 
in the same house when I was a child. Although 
the story has been published, I would like to evoke 
an atmosphere by setting it here. I will give the 
story in the words of Lady Wilde : — 

THE HOENED WITCHES 

A ricli woman sat up late one night carding and preparing 
wool, while all the family and servants were asleep. Suddenly 
a knock was given at the door, and a voice called : " Open ! 
Open ! " 

" Who is there ? " said the woman of the house. 

" I am the Witch of the One Horn," was answered. 

The mistress, supposing that one of her neighbours had called 
and required assistance, opened the door, and a woman entered, 
having in her hand a pair of wool carders, and bearing a horn on 
her forehead, as if growing there. She sat down by the fire in 
silence, and began to card the wool with violent haste. Sud- 
denly she paused and said aloud : " Where are the women ? 
They delay too long." 

Then a second knock came to the door, and a voice called as 
before : " Open ! Open ! " 

The mistress felt herself constrained to rise and open to the 
call, and immediately a second witch entered, having two horns 
on her forehead, and in her hand a wheel for spinning the wool. 

" Give me place," she said, " I am the Witch of the Two 
Horns " ; and she began to spin as quick as lightning. 

And so the knocks went on, and the call was heard, and the 
witches entered, until at last twelve women sat round the fire — 
the first with one horn, the last with twelve horns. And they 
carded the thread, and turned their spinning wheels, and wound 
and wove, all singing together an ancient rhyme, but no word 
did they speak to the mistress of the house. Strange to hear 
and frightful to look upon were these twelve women, with their 
horns and their wheels ; and the mistress felt near to death, 
and she tried to rise that she might call for help ; but she could 
not move, nor could she utter a word or a cry, for the spell of the 
witches was upon her. 



84 MY IRISH YEAR 

Then one of them called to her in Irish, and said : 

" Rise, woman, and make us a cake." 

Then the mistress searched for a vessel to brmg water from 
the well that she might mix the meal and make the cake, but she 
could find none. And they said to her : 

" Take a sieve and bring water in it." 

And she took the sieve and went to the well ; but the water 
poured from it, and she could fetch none for the cake, and she 
sat down by the well and wept. Then a voice came by her and 
said : 

" Take the yellow clay and moss and bind them together, and 
plaster the sieve so that it will hold." 

This she did, and the sieve held water for the cake. And 
the voice said again : 

" Return, and when thou comest to the north angle of the 
house, cry aloud three times and say, ' The Mountain of the 
Fenian Women and the sky over it is all on fire.' " 

And she did so. 

When the witches inside heard the call, a great terrible cry 
broke from their lips, and they rushed forth with wild lamenta- 
tions and shrieks, and fled away to Slieve-namon, where was 
their chief abode. But the Spirit of the Well bade the mistress 
of the house to enter and prepare her home against the enchant- 
ments of the witches if they returned again. 

And first, to break their spells, she sprinkled the water in which 
she had washed her child's feet (the feet-water) outside the door 
on the threshold ; secondly, she took the cake which the witches 
had made in her absence, of meal mixed with the blood drawn 
from the sleeping family. And she broke the cake in bits, and 
placed a bit in the mouth of each sleeper, and they were restored ; 
and she took the cloth they had woven and placed it half in and 
half out of the chest with the padlock ; and lastly, she secured 
the door with a great cross-beam fastened in the jambs, so that 
they could not enter. And having done these things she waited. 

Not long were the witches in coming back, and they raged 
and called for vengeance. 

" Open ! Open ! " they screamed. " Open, feet-water ! " 

" I cannot," said the feet-water, " I am scattered on the 
ground, and my path is down to the Lough." 

" Open, open, wood and tree and beam ! " they cried to the door. 



MY IRISH YEAR 85 

" I cannot," said the door ; "for the beam is fixed in the 
jambs, and I have no power to move." 

" Open, open, cake that we have made and mingled with 
blood," they cried again. 

" I cannot," said the cake, " for I am broken and bruised, 
and my blood is on the lips of the sleeping children." 

Then the witches rushed through the air with great cries, and 
fled back to Slieve-namon, uttering strange curses on the Spirit 
of the Well, who had wished their ruin ; but the woman and the 
house were left in peace, and a mantle dropped by one of the 
witches in her flight was kept hung up by the mistress as a sign 
of the night's awful contest ; and this mantle was in possession 
of the same family from generation to generation for five hundred 
years after. 

The people of the Midlands have a vigorous and 
imaginative speech. " Gold," says a man to whom 
I have been listening, " doesn't all the world want 
it ? — the man digging in the fields, the priest going 
up to Mass, the fool upon the road, the child upon 
the knee ! If you hold it up before it, won't the child 
turn to the gold ? " They have been talking about 
children who have been left orphans. " Sorra a bit so- 
and-so would care if they went the way of the wild 
birds." " Michael was the soundest child that ever 
blessed his face. And he wouldn't be put out 
(embarrassed or perplexed) if he saw you coming 
down the road with horns on you. He never let 
the red roar out him." " Some children," says 
another, " would come to you on a silk thread, and 
with others the chain of a ship wouldn't pull them." 
The talk flows on in humour and satire, with proverbs 
and bits of poetry, and always with vivid illustra- 
tion. " Did you know such a person ? " I asked. 
" Do I know him, do I know him ? Do I know 
me oul' shirt. Aye, I know him as well as I 



86 MY IRISH YEAR 

know bread." The woman gave a description that 
exactly fitted the impetuous person we referred to. 
" Murty came in with a windy hat on him, and threw 
goold down on the counter. ' Murty-Windy-hat,' 
she called him, and the name gives the atmosphere 
that goes with the man. A slow and caution char- 
acter she called ' Martin-steal-upon-larks.' The 
person they spoke about 'Murty,' has fine speech. 
He and his wife are a quarrelling couple. The other 
day I went into their house and found a silence 
between the pair, and an atmosphere that was still 
tense. ' What's the matter with you, Norah,' said 
I to the woman, ' There's an oul' divil eating the 
flesh off me,' she said, using the phrase like a single 
line in tragic drama. The man spoke to me outside. 
' She sticks her eyes into me when I come in, and the 
sort of a temper I have, the brain does be leppin 
off me.' He made an apology in a speech that was 
poetry in everything except form. " I'm running 
the four winds of the world, striving to get them 
bread. I would not know why the people were 
dressed nor when the holidays came, I would be 
that bent with the hardship.' Once, while I was 
taking down a song, Murty spoke to me about the 
virtues of a certain well. I wrote down his phrase. 
Afterwards I thought this was the expression he had 
used, ' The water of that well . . . when the sun 
is on the stones the coldness of it would shake the 
teeth in your head.' But Murty had a better sense 
of the balance of a sentence. He had said, ' The 
water of that well . . . when the sun would be 
splitting the flags, the coldness of it would shiver the 
teeth in your head.' " 



MY IRISH YEAR 87 

Educated people find it hard to believe that an 
Irish peasant, when speaking, has in his mind a com- 
peUing sense of style. I believe that it is so. A man 
said, " he was offered gallons of gold in Cavan gaol 
to betray the country." He used " gallons " with 
" gold " for the alliteration. Another man said, " I 
could have made monuments with money, if I stayed 
in America." " He is drowned in debt." 

It is said that the EngHsh peasant has a vocabulary 
of from 300 to 500 words. Doctor Pedersen took 
down 2500 words of the vocabulary of the Irish 
speakers of the Arran Islands. Doctor Douglas Hyde 
wrote down a vocabulary of 3000 words from people 
in Roscommon who could neither read nor write, and 
he thinks he fell short by 1000 words of the vocabu- 
lary in actual use. He suggests that in Munster — 
especially in Kerry — the average vocabulary in use 
amongst Irish speakers is probably between 5000 
and 6000 words. Behind this abundant vocabulary 
there is a highly developed social sense. Now, satire 
equally with agreeable conversation is a product of 
the highly developed social sense, and, in peasant 
Ireland, satire is current, and has noticeable effect. 
" Isn't my wife a well-discoursed woman ? " said a 
young farmer, speaking of one in whom the literary 
and social feeling had run to seed. His father made 
answer : " She thinks she is as famed for her conversa- 
tion as Daniel O'Connell, but there's as much heed 
given to her as to the dog barking on my ditch out- 
side." The old man ate a meal in his son's house one 
day, and afterwards he spoke of his daughter-in-law's 
housekeeping. " God made meat," says he, " and 
somebody else made cooks." Satire is the product 



88 MY IRISH YEAR 

of the social sense thwarted and so is invective. In 
an organised community invective is rarely permitted, 
and the thwarted social feeling that would express 
itself in invective is passed off in epigiam. Epigram 
is current, but with the highly developed social sense, 
there is in peasant Ireland primitive force and 
elemental freedom, and consequently one gets terribly 
charged invective. Two men had a quarrel in the 
town, and as one passed the other spat out. I heard 
the first man say, " Dirty Darby, that was reared at 
a beggarwoman's paunch ; many's the time my mother 
filled a gallon for you." Irish writing is fuU of invec- 
tive. An astonishing sample is given in a poem which 
Doctor Hyde has translated in " The Religious Songs 
of Connacht " — " Bruadar and Smith and Glinn." 
The man who packed this invective into tight and 
varied verse was a real poetic artist. He intertwines 
the names of his three enemies — Bruadar, Smith and 
GHnn — in every stanza, and using every name that 
the Gaels had given the Deity — The Son, The King of 
the Angels, The King of Brightness, The Son of the 
Virgin — he puts them under the ban of God. 

BRUADAR AND SMITH AND GLINN 

A CUESE 

Bruadar and Smith and Glinn, 

Amen, dear God, I pray, 
May they lie low in waves of woe, 

And tortures slow each day. 

Amen! 

Bruadar and Smith and Glinn, 

Helpless and cold, I pray. 
Amen ! I pray, King, 

To see them pine away. 

Amen ! 



MY IRISH YEAR 89 

Bruadar and Smith and Glinn, 

May flails of sorrow flay ! 
Cause for lamenting, snares and cares, 

Be theirs by night and day ! 

Amen ! 

Blindness come down on Smith, 

Palsy on Bruadar come, 
Amen, King of Brightness ! Smite 

Glinn in his members numb. 

Amen ! 

Smith in the pangs of pain, 

Stumbling on Bruadar' s path, 
King of the Elements, Oh, Amen ! 

Let loose on Glinn Thy Wrath. 

Amen ! 

For Bruadar gape the grave, 

Up-shovel for Smith the mould. 
Amen, King of the Sunday ! Leave 

Glinn in the devil's hold. 

Amen ! 

Terrors on Bruadar rain, 

And pain upon pain on Glinn, 
Amen, King of the Stars ! And Smith 

May the devil be linking him. 

Amen ! 

Glinn in a shaking ague. 

Cancer on Bruadar's tongue, 
Amen, King of the Heavens ! and Smith 

For ever stricken dumb. 

Amen ! 

Thirst but no drink for Glinn, 

Smith in a cloud of grief. 
Amen ! King of the Saints ; and rout 

Bruadar without relief. 

Amen ! 



90 MY IRISH YEAR 

Smith, without child or heir, 
And Bruadar bare of store, 

Amen, King of the Friday ! Tear 
From Glinn his black heart's core. 

Amen. 

Bruadar with nerveless limbs, 

Hemp strangling Glinn's last breath. 

Amen, King of the World's Light ! 
And Smith in grips with death. 

Amen ! 

Glinn stiffening for the tomb. 

Smith wasting to decay, 
Amen, King of the Thunder's Gloom, 

And Bruadar sick alway. 

Amen ! 

Smith like a sieve of holes, 
Bruadar with throat decay, 

Amen, King of the Orders ! Glinn 
A buck-show every day. 

Amen ! 

Hell-hounds to hunt for Smith, 

Glinn led to hang on high. 
Amen, King of the Judgment Day ! 

And Bruadar rotting by. 

Amen ! 

Curses on Glinn, I cry. 

My curse on Bruadar be. 
Amen, King of the Heaven's high ! 

Let Smith in bondage be. 

Amen ! 

Showers of want and blame, 
Reproach, and shame of face, 

Smite them all three, and smite again. 
Amen, King of Grace ! 

Amen ! 



MY IRISH YEAR 91 

Melt, may the three away, 

Bruadar and Smith and Glinn, 
Fall in a swift and sure decay 

And lose, but never win. 

Amen ! 

May pangs pass through thee, Smith, 

(Let the wind not take my prayer), 
May I see before the year is out 

Thy heart's blood flowing there. 

Amen ! 

Leave Smith no place nor land. 

Let Bruadar wander wide, 
May the Devil stand at Glinn's right hand. 

And Glinn to him be tied. 

Amen ! 

All ill from every airt 

Come down upon the three 
And blast them ere the year be out 

In rout and misery. 

Amen ! 

Glinn let misfortune bruise, 

Bruadar lose blood and brains. 
Amen, Jesus ! hear my voice. 

Let Smith be bent in chains. 

Amen ! 

I accuse both Glinn and Bruadar, 

And Smith I accuse to God, 
May a breach and a gap be upon the three, 

And the Lord's avenging rod. 

Amen ! 

Each one of the wicked three 

Who raised agamst me their hand, 
May fire from heaven come down and slay 

This day their perjured band. 

Amen ! 



92 MY IRISH YEAR 

May none of their race survive, 
May God destroy them all, 

Each curse of the psalms in the holy books 
Of the prophets upon them fall. 

Amen ! 

Blight skull, and ear, and skin. 
And hearing, and voice, and sight. 

Amen ! before the year be out 
Blight, Son of the Virgin, blight. 

Amen ! 

May my curses hot and red. 
And all I have said this day, 

Strike the Black Peeler too. 
Amen, dear God, I pray ! 

Amen ! 



Besides the supreme piece of invective, there is only 
one thing fit to be placed. It is also given in " The 
Religious Songs of Connacht." A poet cries out : 
" There are three watching for my death — the Devil, 
the Children, and the Worms; — the Worms that 
would rather have my body than my soul and my 
wealth; the Children that would rather have my 
wealth than my soul should be at one with my body ; 
the Devil that has no desire for the wealth of the 
world, nor for my body, only for my soul. Christ 
that was crucified upon the tree, let the Worms, the 
Devil, and the Children be hanged by a gad." 

At the root of Irish social life there is the will and 
the power to satirize. That hfe has two aspects ; one 
shows a world of kindly friendships wherein the 
binding power of blood is strongly recognised — a 
community where the social sense has been cultivated 
and where social intercourse is a necessity. And the 




-ii" 





THE tinker's curse. 
(From a water-colour drawing by Jack B. Yeats, in possession of Mr. Georpe W. Russell. 



MY IRISH YEAR 93 

other aspect shows never ending quarrels between 
families of the same blood, constant and vexatious 
litigation, outbursts of satire and invective. Both 
aspects of Irish life obtain fine expression in Irish 
literature. We have vivid praises of men and women, 
charming appreciations of kindly townlands and 
villages, and above all, deeply felt and personal 
lamentations for the dead. Beside this, we have 
humorous satire, passionate and deliberate invective, 
potent and elaborate curses. The satirical part of 
the Irish mind is very well represented in recent 
Irish writing. That essay in personalities which Mr 
George Moore has just published, " Hail and Farewell," 
is distinctive of the Irish spirit, and the Irish invective 
is continued in Synge's " Shadow of the Glen," " The 
Well of the Saints," " The Playboy of the Western 
World." The speech of the Irish peasant is fine 
material for the dramatist, and the Irish dramatists 
have made use of it. Synge's dialogue reproduces 
the energy and the extravagance of the people's 
speech — " It's that you'd be saying surely if you had 
seen him and he after drinking for weeks, rising up in 
the red dawn — or before it maybe, and going out 
into the yard as naked as an ash-tree in the moon of 
May and shying clods against the visage of the stars 
till he'd put the fear of death into the bonavs and the 
screeching sows." ^ 

I know scores of peasants who could speak in this 
fashion. It is true that Synge's dialogue is a splendid 
convention ; all the characters speak to the same 
rhythm and their speech is made up of words and 
phrases from different parts of the country with un- 

1 " Playboy of the Western World." 



94 MY IRISH YEAR 

authorized Gaelic idioms. Nevertheless I feel as 
much reality in Synge's as in the speech of that 
master of Irish life and manners, — Carle ton. Curi- 
ously enough, in a book, not written by an Irishman 
— in Sorrow's " Lavengro " — I find a passage that is 
true to the dignity that is always in the heartfelt 
speech of the Irish people. " An old woman, at 
least eighty, was seated on a stone, cowering over a 
few sticks burning feebly on what had once been a 
right noble and cheerful hearth ; her side-glance was 
towards the door as I entered, for she had heard my 
footsteps, I stood still and her haggard glance rested 
upon my face. ' Is this your house, Mother ? ' I 
demanded in the language which I thought she could 
best understand. ' Yes, my own house, my own 
house ; the house of the broken-hearted . . . my 
own house, the beggar's house, the accursed house of 
Cromwell.' " 

The Anglo-Irish idiom is naturally formed and 
logically constructed ; every deviation from the 
standard EngHsh tongue has its reason and its ex- 
planation. Those interested in the philological side 
should read the two scholarly articles which Miss 
Hayden and Professor Hartog contributed to the 
Fortnightly Review in April and May, 1909, also Dr 
Joyce's racy book, " English as we speak it in 
Ireland." Many pecuharities in Irish phrase are 
survivals of Gaehc locution. " I saw him and he 
going the road," is an instance. The use of " and " 
in this way is a survival of Old Irish. " I am after 
writing a letter," does not mean that the speaker is 
in train to write a letter, it means that he has 
recently written it. Sir John Rhys, not finding 



MY IRISH YEAR 95 

this idiom in any other Indo-European language is 
incHned to beHeve that it came into Irish as a Hteral 
translation from some pre-Arryan tongue. There is 
another interesting tense in Anglo-Irish. In reply to 
the query, " Does it rain here ? " the native says, 
" It bees raining " or "It does be raining." He is 
making an attempt to reach an exactitude that is 
possible in Gaelic. As the student of O'Growny 
knows there are three different ways of saying in Irish 
" George is a ruler ; " the use of the first form would 
imply that George is identical with a ruler, the use of 
the second, that George had become a ruler, while the 
use of the third form would imply that George rules 
intermittently. The verb in the third form corre- 
sponds with the English " be," and so " bees " and 
" does be " are used in Anglo-Irish as a frequentitive 
tense ; thus : " he bees lame in the winter " or " he 
does be a cripple in the winter." In pronunciation 
many peculiarities are survivals, not vulgarisms. We 
still give the diphthong " ea " the value that Shake- 
speare gave it. 

" And for a woman were thou first created. 
Till Nature as she wrought thee, fell a-doting 
And by addition me of thee defeated." 

Our pronunciation of English is derived from the 
EHzabethan pronunciation. Certain English writers 
unaware of the mutations of their own language 
thought that our treatment of " ea " was an ignorant 
departure from standard pronunciation, and, by a 
false analogy they have made us say " Praste," for 
"Priest," "belave," for "beHeve" " indade " for 
" indeed." But, the old English sounds of " ie " and 



96 MY IRISH YEAR 

" ee " have not changed and our pronunciation of 
these diphthongs is in perfect agreement with standard 
pronunciation. 

The Gael has always been marked for his abundant 
and vivid speech and for his conspicuous martial 
qualities. " Born soldiers of fortune," says the 
German historian. " Very great scorners of death," 
say the EUzabethan observers. Because of his 
conspicuous courage and his impassioned speech the 
Irishman has been credited with a quality that is 
supposed to go with these — the lover's passion and the 
lover's devotion. But love, as the English and the 
Continental writers think of it has very Httle place 
in Irish life. Amongst the peasantry lovemaking is 
more often a subject for satire than for romance, and 
our cousins — ^the Gaels of Scotland say of us " Comh 
neamhghradhmhar le Eireannach," " as loveless as an 
Irishman." 



CHAPTER VII 

A MARRIAGE 

Michael Cunliffe had for living children Martin, 
John and Julia, Matt, Rose, Francis, and Ellen. 
Martin and Julia were in America ; Matt was in a 
shop in Cahirmona, and Rose was married in the 
district. Three were at home, John, Francis and 
Ellen ; John was the eldest of these and the farm 
would come to him, and Francis was a young fellow 
working on land until he could make some settlement 
for himself. Ellen had just passed the age when she 
was referred to as " the gearcallach " and spoken to 
as " Sissy " by the people who came into the house. 
She had the look which a Connachtman saw in the 
women of the Midlands, Uisge faoi thalamh, " Water 
under the ground." This young girl with her copper- 
coloured hair and shrewd eyes could hold her own in 
a game of intrigue. 

The Cunliffe house was illuminated ; a candle was 
hghted in the kitchen window, a lamp in the upper 
bedroom, and another candle in the lower bedroom. 
This illumination was the sign of some excitement in 
the house. A marriage was being arranged for John, 
and the party on the other side were to visit Cunliffe's 
this evening. 

Although lights were in the windows it was still 
the early dusk of an autumn day. Francis had 



98 MY IRISH YEAR 

brought up the horse. The cattle were coming up 
the long bohereen that led from the road. Michael 
Cunliffe walked behind his cattle. On his left hand 
were some acres of tumbled bog and waste ground 
where rushes stood beside pools of water. The ground 
on his right hand showed the black soil of the bog. 
The potatoes were being dug, and on the ridge were 
spectral potato -stalks. Back of the house there was 
a tillage field, a pasture field and a meadow with after- 
grass. Forty years before CunHffe had come into 
the place from a neighbouring county. It was after 
the famine, land was cheap, and he got about thirty 
acres of land, good and bad, at a low rent. He had 
built the house himself ; he had dug the clay out of 
the pit, mixed it and raised his walls foot by foot. 
Friends had helped him to lay the long beams that held 
the roof. He had woven branches through the beams 
and had his roof thatched with the straw of his crop. 
Michael Cunhffe had been Hving with kin of his, the 
Markeys, and when the house ~ was built he had 
married a woman who was a far-out member of the 
family. Michael's wife was no longer Hving. 

The horse was stabled at the end of the byre. 
After Francis had gone into the house his father re- 
mained with the cattle. Michael would praise a 
woman by saying that she was kind to a cow, or a 
young man by saying he had a good hand on a horse. 
His byre was a second household. He had pride in 
his horse and cattle and he had comradeship with 
them. 

He was stroking down the horse when the car with 
the visitors turned off the road on to the bohereen. 

The Cunhffes had gone far to make an alliance 



MY IRISH YEAR 99 

for John. They were fairly secure, and they ex- 
pected a good dowry with the woman that would 
come into their house. A well-off and respected 
farmer in the County Leitrim, John Owens, was 
on the look-out for a good match for Mary, his 
daughter, and he and Michael Cunliffe had come 
together at a fair. Subsequently John had visited 
at the Owens' house. Negotiations had reached 
the stage when the other party might look over 
the Cunlilfes' ways and means. Mary was making 
the visit with her people. John had gone to meet 
John Owens' car. He had been given a place beside 
the father, and Mary and her mother sat the other 
side. When they came to the courtyard, Michael 
came out of the byre and welcomed them to the 
place. Rose had come to assist at the function, and 
she and Ellen brought the Owens' women into the 
house. John and Francis looked to the horse and 
car, and the elders went on to look over the farm. 
John Owens had observed the ground between the 
road and the house. They went into the byre and 
then they looked at the sow that had her second 
litter. The car and cart were good vehicles, the 
stack of turf showed a plentiful supply, and the hay 
was well-saved. The pair went into the field at the 
back of the house and looked at two well-grown 
calves that were on the stubble. Then they went 
into the meadow and stopped before a young horse. 
" He'll be worth fifteen pounds at the Fair of Cahir- 
mona," said John Owens. " More," said Michael 
Cunliffe. " Not much more." " Three pounds 
more." " Ay, I'd give that for him." There 
were a few sheep on the meadow. " They belong to 



100 MY IRISH YEAR 

my son, Francis," said Michael Cunliffe. " He'll be 
settling for himself soon. Now I'll tell you what's 
coming to the boy. There's forty pounds in the bank 
for him, and he has the little stock that you see. 
Next year he may have a few heifers. There was 
talk of him marrymg a young woman that has a 
farm beyond this. But I hear that he has fallen 
into fancy with a girl that's back from America. I 
believe they'd have enough between them to take a 
little farm and stock it." 

" The girls that come back from America are 
wasted before they settle down here," said John 
Owens. 

" You're right," said Michael. " But I'd like you 
to know that whatever happens, Francis won't be 
taking anything oif the farm." 

" And what about the young man in Cahirmona ? " 

" He has something by him, and there are people 
who wouldn't be afraid to trust him with more. 
He'll be opening a place of his own in a Meath town." 

" I like your way of doing," said John Owens, 
"and I like the look of the place. I'd like half of 
Mary's fortune to be left with the young people." 

" No, John. I won't listen to that at all." 

" I want the young people to have the handling 
of some money." 

" Well, there's no use in saying one thing and mean- 
ing another. I must have the grasp of everything 
in the place. It all came from me and it all must 
stay with me as long as I'm above the groimd. Ellen 
has to get her fortune out of it, and everything else 
that's in my purse and place, will go to your daughter 
and my son." 



MY IRISH YEAR 101 

" How much do you think I'm thinking o! giving 
with Mary." 

" A hundred pounds." 

" I'm not altogether as well oS as that." 

" I won't be bargaining with you. If you don't 
say a hundred pomids, John, we won't talk of a 
marriage." 

" Well, I'll say a hundred pounds. It's more than 
we thought of when we were young, but times are 
changed, and changed for the better, thank God. 
A hundred pounds. Here's my hand to you." 

" Saoighail fada agat.'' 

Then they went into the house. John and Francis 
were standing before the fire in the kitchen, and 
Michael Cunliffe briefly told them the terms of the 
engagement. He was satisfied. Ellen came from the 
upper room and announced that supper was ready. 
Before each place there was a plate of roast goose 
and ham, and a glass of whiskey was beside each 
plate. Maij was seated with her hands on her lap. 
She looked at a picture of the Blessed Virgin that 
was over the bed. Under it was a mthered branch 
of last Palm Sunday. Some affection for her sur- 
roundings began to come into Mary's mind. John 
came to her and pressed her to drink a glass of 
whisky. Her voice was liigh-pitched with nervous- 
ness. " As true as God is over me," she said, " I'll 
drink none." " I'd rather have the girl that drank 
before my face than the one that would go behind 
the door and do it," said Michael CunUffe. "" Drink 
it," said her father. " Stand up with John Cunliffe 
and drink the glass." " Drink it, Mary, lamb," 
said her mother. Her face was red with blushes 



102 MY IRISH YEAR 

when she drank the glass. Then she sat still and 
John held her hand. " Long life to ye both," said 
Michael. " You are both of honest people. And 
may they be honest, them you leave behind you." 
Some simplicity in Mary's thought and speech gave 
Ellen, who had been a monitoress in the school, a 
touch of patronage towards her. She thought of 
Mary as coming from a remote and uncivilised place, 
and her want of self-possession seemed part of her 
barbarism. When the Owens were returning, John 
Cunliffe went some miles with them. It was near 
morning when he came back, and he and his father 
sat talking until they went out to their work. Rose 
stayed the night, and the two talked of Ellen's future. 
Two weeks after, John married, and Mary Owens 
came into Michael Cunliffe's house. Francis got 
married in the spring. Wlien the elder brother 
brings in a wife, the young girl who was the daughter 
becomes the step-daughter of the house. Cunliffe's 
house no longer stood for a single interest — there was 
Owen and Mary's interest, there was her father's, 
and there was Ellen's own interest. The younger 
girl was subject to Mary. She would be sent out 
for turf when she wanted to read, and bid milk the 
cows when she wanted to dress for the evening. 
These things Ellen had done before, but she had done 
them in the interest of the indivisible Cunliffe house- 
hold. Now her duties were a tribute of labour. 



II 

She brought in the turf on an evening and sat down 
by the fire. Bridget Rush was there, and there was 



MY IRISH YEAR 103 

no one else in the house. Bridget used to go from 
house to house, knitting stockings and mending 
clothes. She was everyone's familiar. " I'm thinking 
of getting a good husband for you, Miss Cunhffe," 
she said. " Who would he be, Bridget ? " said Ellen. 
" A fine young man that has just come back from 
America." " Hugh Daly, is it ? " " Indeed it is 
Hugh Daly." Ellen had considered Hugh Daly. 
His American clothes set him off well, and besides, 
he was a well-built, good-looking fellow. Hugh 
Daly was settUng down on a farm his father had 
minded not over-well. But before taking root he 
had let himself out in two or three drinking bouts, 
and when in these he had not been behind in using 
the strong hand. " He'll be a steady man when he 
begins to put his little place into trim," said Bridget 
Rush. " They say it is a poor place," said Ellen. 
" Well, if a woman came in with a fair fortune they 
could make it a tidy place in a few years." " Katie 
has to get her fortune out of the place," said Ellen. 
" I'm not asking what your fortune is, daughter," 
said Bridget Rush, " but your father, sure, would give 
a fortune with you that would let Hugh settle with 
Katie, and give ye a good start." 

She met Hugh Daly in a house where there was 
a dance. He addressed her as " Miss Cunliffe," 
and asked her to dance with him. There was good- 
humoured swinging and squeezing, but Ellen Cunliffe 
had a prestige that kept her clear of these famiUarities. 
The girls and the young men went home in groups 
and not in couples. Hugh Daly walked beside Ellen 
and two or three other girls. In a week Ellen and 
Rose knew that he was on for making a match. 



104 MY IRISH YEAR 

Sometimes when Ellen was there he would come 
into Rose's house, and when she was going home he 
would leave Ellen part of the road. On a market 
day in Cahirmona he entertained them in a room 
over the shop where Matt was an assistant. Hugh 
Daly had taken a sup that day, and on his way back 
he told Rose of his regard for Ellen. It was agreed 
that he should make a proposal to Michael Cunliffe 
that week. 

He did not tell Rose what money he needed with 
Ellen. These were his circumstances. Hugh Daly's 
sister Uved on the farm, and she would have to get 
her portion out of it. Moreover, his father had been 
a drinking man, and the farm was badly wasted. 
The evening that he went to her father's Ellen 
stayed at her sister's house. Hugh came in on his 
way back. He was angry at the offer Michael Cunhffe 
had made him. " Yom' father wants to make little 
of me," he said. " He only offered fifty pounds. 
If it was anyone else that asked for you he'd have 
offered eighty. What good would fifty pounds be 
to us ? Katie must get her money, and there's 
hardly any stock on the farm." He parted from 
Ellen not on the best of terms. 

Ellen cried when he had gone, and for consolation 
Rose gave her some practical advice. She went back 
to the house. Her father had to go to a fair early 
in some far-off place, and he was asleep in the settle 
in the kitchen. John and Mary were in the room 
above. She put out the light and sat by the fire 
that was covered over with ashes. What was the 
good of Rose's advice ? Hugh Daly would marry 
another girl, and her father would make a match for 



MY IRISH YEAR 105 

her. If it were with a man in a distant place she 
would consent to marriage readily enough. She 
might go to America in spite of Julia's protest. Or 
she might ask her father for her money and enter a 
convent. Yes, that is what she would do. She would 
become a nun and teach in a convent school. 

Then she heard Mary talking in the room above. 
" Where would she get eighty pounds when every- 
body gets their rightful share ? My father's money 
wasn't given to make a big fortune for Ellen Cunliffe." 
Mary was jealous of the thought that Ellen claimed 
a dowry almost as big as the dowry she brought into 
the house. " Me that had the biggest fortune that 
ever came into this townland." Ellen heard Mary 
say. " Deed she won't. Never will Hugh Daly 
bring her into his house," Mary said again. 

Ellen swore by the beam of her father's roof that 
she would leave that house triumphantly and marry 
Hugh Daly. Thirty pounds was a great deal of money, 
but she remembered Rose's advice. In the end the 
Dalys might do with seventy pounds. Julia might 
send ten pounds from America. She would claim 
the eggs of a year for her perquisite. Yes, and if 
her father got a good price for the young horse, she 
would put something to her dowry. She went up 
to her room, and when her father rose she came down 
and got him breakfast. He ate by candle-light. 
" Hugh Daly," said her father, " isn't the first that 
spoke about you." " I wouldn't care to marry any 
other man," said Ellen. " Tliat's the talk of a young 
girl." " I'm in earnest, father," said she. When 
he was going out of the door she spoke to him about 
the eggs. Her father was agreeable, but she and he 



106 MY IRISH YEAR 

knew that the granting of the eggs depended upon 
Mary's good-will. 

Mary was really a good-natured woman. She did 
not put any obstacles in the way of Ellen getting 
the benefit of the eggs. Afterwards she got 
very sympathetic, and she asked that some of her 
money be put to Ellen's dowry. Ellen had now 
about sixty-five pounds, and she let Hugh Daly know 
of the rise in her fortune. That year in America, 
Julia worked so hard that her hair became suddenly 
grey. But she had made a good deal of money, and 
was able to send ten pounds to Ellen. She married 
Hugh Daly mthin the year, bringing to his house a 
fortune of seventy-five pounds. 

Ill 

Ellen is now the mother of seven children, and 
four of them are fine boys. She lives too near her 
brother's for perfect accord to be between the two 
families. She does not forget that she came into 
Hugh Daly's mth a fortune less than he asked, or 
that the portion she brought was made up with a 
contribution from the share going to Mary and 
Owen. She has the mocking tongue that often breaks 
the peace between the two houses. At school her 
children are kept in competition with Mary's children, 
who are rude and somewhat dull. Michael, Mary's 
eldest boy, was in Ellen's house one evening when 
I was there. He had given a foolish answer to the 
priest, who had spoken to the children on the road. 
Ellen was laughing over the adventure, but she had 
a laugh that left it hard to say whether she laughed 



MY IRISH YEAR 107 

with the boy or laughed at him. Michael knew 
enough of his aunt to discover the mockery in her 
mind. " Do you ever say your prayers, Ellen," 
said he. " I do, in troth," said Ellen. " I'll tell you, 
Michael," said she, "what I prayed for last night. 
I prayed that I would see ten cows, a horse and 
a car before this house, and that I would see your 
place with only an ass and a goat." " But, Michael, 
a char a,"" said she, " I'm only talking. We're the 
one blood, and what could I wish but good luck to 
you." She was sincere in both attitudes. And 
before Michael went she was teasing him again. 
In the summer before Julia was back from America, 
and there was a party for her at her father's house, 
the talk turned on money sent home, and Mary said 
a hasty word. Instantly Ellen rose up. Her self- 
control and her power of deliberate placing of word 
gave her the triumph. This evening, when Michael 
was about to go home, Ellen said, " Sit down, Michael, 
and let us talk of last summer when your Aunt Julia 
was at home." Her formulas reminded me of the 
opening of that splendid tale, " The Little Brawl of 
Allen." "Well, thanks be to God," said Finn, 
" we're all at peace. It's a long time since we were 
at peace before. Indeed, we weren't at peace, Goll, 
since the day I killed your father." 



THE PEASANT PRGPEIETOR 

One evening I went to Brian Mulcahy's, a small 
farmer's house in the Irish Midlands. Brian and his 
sons were still from home, and while I waited for 
them Mrs Mulcahy entertained me. It was summer, 
and Mrs Mulcahy was in her bare feet. She was 
preparing a feed for the pigs, and she talked to me 
while I drank buttermilk, a beverage that is becoming 
rare in the farmhouses hereabouts. 

The house is comfortable and well-kept, though 
it must seem harsh and bare to those who look for 
space and beauty in houses. There are four rooms 
in the house, and we sit in the place that is hall, 
kitchen, and living-room. In terms of stage direc- 
tions the entrance is at back right, the fireplace takes 
up nearly the whole of the left end of the room. 
Like a huge can die- extinguisher, the chimney pro- 
jects over the fire of turf that is on the floor. A crook 
hangs down, holding the pot above the fire. The 
big dresser is filled with delf and tins, the settle-bed 
is folded to make a bench against the wall. There 
are room doors right and left, and a ladder going up 
to a loft. The floor is of clay ; the roof is blackened 
and the walls are browned with smoke. A fiddle 
hangs on the wall, and there is a gun across the 
chimney. 

108 



MY IRISH YEAR 109 

For two generations a national struggle has been 
made on behalf of homes such as this. What has 
been the gain ? That which is absolutely essential 
to peasantry whose whole capital is in their holding 
— security of tenure — lias been gained. There have 
been reductions in rent as well, but these reduc- 
tions have been met by an increase in expenditure. 
Things formerly made in the house or grown on the 
land are now bought in the shops. 

In Ireland an economic holding is reckoned as 
fifty acres of mixed land. On such a holding the 
farmer and his family can live with some comfort 
and dignity, provided that the labour is supplied by 
the family. Half of the holdings in Ireland are only 
up to fifteen acres. The standard of comfort kept 
up on these holdings is nothing to boast of. There 
are many farms of ten and twelve acres where a 
decent standard is maintained, but in such cases the 
land is exceptionally good, or the family is very 
capable. My friends the Mulcahys have twelve 
acres. Brian is a good farmer, and his two sons are 
exceptional for the reason that they are in no hurry 
to get away from the land. He has a daughter also 
in the house. The rest of the children are in 
America. 

The cattle are drawing home, and I go out to the 
" street," or courtyard, to meet Brian. We go 
into the byre with the cows. They are all good 
milkers, it appears. He sends his milk to the co- 
operative creamery, but he keeps Thursday's milk 
in addition to Saturday night's and Sunday's, so that 
there is still a churning in Brian's house and the women 
folk are not likely to lose the art of butter-making. 



110 MY IRISH YEAR 

Brian Mulcahy has lived his Hf e of sixty years in this 
spot. He has a certain poetry when he speaks of natural 
things. He spoke of the delight of the summer morning, 
and he referred to scent that is lost in the heat of the 
day, the smell of the bushes in the morning. He is 
of the genuine peasant stock. He is careful, and 
dislikes waste. 

Tea had been made ready in the room above, and 
Brian and myself sat down with the two boys. The 
youngest is about eighteen and the other is twenty- 
six. The elder boy talks about the news given in 
the country paper. He was interested in the passage 
of the new Bill. He was not a mere agrarian ; he 
was a Home Ruler. He was interested in agricul- 
tural organisation abroad, and had heard of the con- 
ditions in Denmark. His remarks on social problems 
were intelligent. The younger boy talked about his 
gun and the sport about the place. The father 
had been in the Land League struggle, but his vision 
of politics was hazy ; he had the mind of those who 
made Daniel O'Connell into a folk-hero. He talks 
of the change that is coming over peasant Ireland. 
In his early days the farmers bought scarcely any- 
thing in the shops. Now they lived on shop goods — 
tea and white bread. In his day they made bread 
out of the wheat they had grown, they killed their 
own bacon, and went to the shop for salt and tobacco 
only. Men could not do a day's work on the food 
that was taken now : tea all day long, shop bread, 
American bacon. He knew men who could carry the 
plough from one side of the field to the other. When 
they came up from the work it was not tea they took, 
but buttermilk with meal mixed through it. 



MY IRISH YEAR 111 

When we went down Bridget, Brian's daughter, 
had made the kitchen as tidy as a sitting-room, 
and for a while we sat around the hearth. Bridget 
is a capable girl who regards things gravely. She 
was going to America in September. I asked if she 
was sorry to leave home, and she said no. Her 
brothers and sisters were there, she was going amongst 
her own, and would enter a fuller life. Besides, 
" New York is full of Aughnalee people." The 
newspapers on the settle were American, and the 
photographs in the room above had come from 
America also. Ireland is a country partitioned 
between Great Britain and America. 

As my talk showed an interest in reading, Bridget 
brought a book down to me. It had been published 
in America, and was a collection of about a thousand 
Irish songs. In the collection no personality was 
shown, and all the songs had been left anonymous. 
The gather-up of folk-songs, street ballads, culture 
poems, poet's corner verse had an extraordinary 
unity. It seemed to me to express the soul of Ireland 
more completely than any book I had ever seen. 
The political songs were defiant, the pathetic songs 
were resigned, the humorous songs exuberant ; the 
play of wit was surely unique in national 
poetry. The love songs had charm rather than 
passion. 

Brian accompanied me some of the way back, 
and talked to me of Bridget's departure. The elder 
boy was bringing a wife into the house soon, and 
Bridget would not stay. She would get a good 
dowry, but she had no wish to settle here. According 
to the peasant custom, the dowry brought in by the 



112 MY IRISH YEAR 

brother's wife would go to the sister. In this case 
the money would help the younger boy to get a farm 
near the place, and an addition would come from 
the friends in America. This arrangement is char- 
acteristic of peasant sociology. 



^b'^ 



CHAPTER IX 

AN AGRARIAN PRIEST 

A GROUP of people are standing before a Midland 
farmhouse. They are quiet and reverent ; Mass has 
just been celebrated in the house, and on the bench 
outside a coffin is laid. It is the forenoon of the day, 
and the sun is on the limewashed walls of the house. 
The priest stands at the threshold and speaks eulogy 
and consolation. He is a man of the peasantry, 
with a strong figure and a plain visage. He is dressed 
for riding. He finishes, and the father of the dead 
boy steps to the table and puts half a sovereign on 
the plate. Everyone in the assembly comes forward 
and puts down a piece of silver. Some who make 
contribution are here as deputies. " From Mrs 
Mulligan," says a girl; and she is followed by the 
representative of a Protestant farmer, "From Mr 
Irwin." The young man who was acolyte at the Mass 
counts the money and arranges it before the priest. 
Father Michael stands forward again. " The people 
have subscribed £5, 17s. 6d. This is generous, and 
I am very much obliged." His horse is led down 
the laneway, and Father Michael mounts and rides 
off. He will be at the burial-place before the funeral ; 
the procession moves slowly, the coffin being carried 
on the shoulders of the men. 
The contributions from the neighbours are called 

TT 113 



114 MY IRISH YEAR 

" offerings," and the custom of making " offerings " 
to the priest is now only local. It had its origin in 
the penal days, when the only levy allowed the 
Catholic clergy were the " offerings " made to the 
priest who officiated at the burial. The custom 
persists in the Midland counties ; it is galling to 
many families, but where it remains the priests are 
particular that the custom should not lapse. It is 
by way of being a piece of mutual aid, and social 
feeling enters into the " offerings." The people say : 
" Not much was thought of her. The priest didn't 
get £1 in offerings at her burial." " He was a re- 
spected man. There was £10 in offerings." It is 
a pity that the offerings are not transferred from 
burials to marriages. A contribution from the 
neighbours would enable poor couples to get married. 
I kept a memory of Father Michael standing at 
the threshold on that bright forenoon. I had ghmpses 
of him afterwards. I would see him stalking through 
the town or galloping a horse along a country road. 
He is not a popular priest. He sermonises the 
young men about the dangers of secret societies, and 
he forbids the girls to attend cross-road dances. 
Amongst the elders he has the name of being close- 
fisted with money. He was the people's adviser 
during the land agitation ; he acted as their repre- 
sentative at the settlement, and negotiated the 
transfer of the land on very favourable terms. He is 
now working to bring about a settlement of the graz- 
ing question, and if his pohcy succeeds the man with 
the meagre farm will have a strip of the grazing 
ranch added to his land. The Agricultural Organisa- 
tion Society have found him an able ally. Father 



MY IRISH YEAR 115 

Michael lias done much to make the Co-operative 
Creamery a success. 

After an interval I came into personal contact 
with Father Michael. I had been staying with 
another priest, but I shall not write about him lest 
I be accused of favouring professors of my religion. 
I will only say that Father James is a scholar with 
a child's nature. An arch^ological excursion had 
brought us into the other parish. He was informing 
my mind on the subject of the Midland clans when 
Father Michael rode by. In his impetuous way, 
Father James jumped on to a wall and called to his 
colleague. " Now," said he to me, " here is the man 
who can tell you about the working of the Land 
Act." Father Michael rode over, and I was intro- 
duced. " We're in your territory, and I give this 
man over to you," said Father James. " Ask him 
to dinner, and tell him about the Land Bill." " Come 
to-night. Pot-luck," said Father Michael, and he 
rode away. " He knows more about the country 
than any man in Parliament," said Father James ; 
" he has to deal with a rough people, too." I 
ventured to say that I thought the pastor was like 
the parish. " Did I ever tell you about Father 
Michael's uncle ? " asked Father James. " He was 
in the next parish. The people were rougher there, 
and Father Frank was a fit man for them. It was a 
wide bit of country, but the parish priest did not like 
to waste money on a curate, and he worked the 
parish single-handed. Well, the Bishop was down 
at a confirmation, and he called Father Frank aside. 
" This is a wide parish," said the Bishop. " God's 
good ! I've my health, and I'm well able for it," 



116 MY IRISH YEAR 

said Father Frank. " I must send you a curate,'' 
said the Bishop. " My Lord," said Father Frank, 
" if I had another horse I could do the work of two 
parishes." To the end Father Frank worked with 
horses, not with curates. 

Father Michael Hves in a house that was once 

occupied by Lord 's agent, a roomy house with 

a good garden in front. The door is opened by that 
singular person, a priest's housekeeper. We are 
shown into a room that has a horsehair sofa, a big 
table, chairs, and spittoons. It is a bachelor's 
house, without grace, without neat touches. The 
newspapers, that litter the room are the local 
paper, and The Free7nan's Journal, and the volumes 
in the case are the books Father Michael brought 
from Maynooth. Dinner is served in another room. 
One can see that Father Michael is of monophagous 
habits. We have fowl and bacon, apple-pie, and 
strong tea. Whisky and different wines are available. 
Self-government has no immediate interest for Father 
Michael. The people want land, good land, and 
more land. The Government works in a muddled 
way, but it has good intentions, and the country 
improves. The new University will fit Catholics 
to hold well-paid places. The transfer of the land 
is the beginning of the country's salvation. 

There is no typical priest ; there are only in- 
dividuals with a certain education and discipline, 
living in a certain environment. But in every 
parish priest there is an administrator — or shall I 
say a dictator ? In an Irish democracy the priest 
is like some great, semi-independent public servant. 
He marries, christens and buries ; says Mass and 



MY IRISH YEAR 117 

preaches sermons ; hears confession and attends 
sick calls ; he manages the schools, helps to organise 
League branches and co-operative societies, advises 
the people as to the price they should pay for land, 
and the time they should spray potatoes. In addi- 
tion to all this, he takes a very active interest in the 
conduct of his people. This immense power has its 
abuses ; in Father Michael's parish, for instance, 
people are terrified of having a dance at their house, 
and young men and women can meet only in the most 
furtive way. In the next parish, however, there is 
absolute freedom. His dictatorship produces dead- 
ness or revolt, but not servility. " Ireland may be 
priest-ridden, but she refuses to be squire-ridden." 
In a district where the utmost frankness of speech 
is permitted a lapse in conduct is unknown. Some 
credit is due to Father Michael's vigilance even when 
we have made allowance for race-psychology and the 
long discipline of the Church. 

What are his ideals as regards his people ? He 
would have a nation of peasant proprietors. The 
boys and girls should marry early, and know as 
little as possible about the dangers and temptations 
of courtship. The young men should not belong 
to any dangerous political associations. Catholic 
Ireland should have intellectual distinction, for 
Father Michael, though he talks of well-paid places, 
has the peasant's disinterested feeling for learning. 
His racial pride would be satisfied when the once- 
dominant Protestant acknowledged Catholic ability 
in learning and in business. 



THE COUNTRY SCHOOLMASTER 

When the stranger enters the school there is a tumult 
of children rising to their feet in acknowledgment 
of the visit. The schoolroom recalls a peasant in- 
terior : the children are mannerly but not obtrusively 
disciplined, the walls are bare except for maps and 
tablets, the floor is broken, the desks and benches 
are without ease or elegance. A turf fire burns in 
the grate, and this fire is made up of a toll exacted 
from the children. (In the morning you might have 
seen some of them on their way to school, a turf from 
the home rick under the arm.) We are in the boys' 
school ; about tliirty pupils are present, and of 
these only a few are over sixteen. The school- 
master, Mr Jeremiah Kerrigan, comes forward. 
He is a man of forty, with a foxy beard, sunken 
cheeks, and alert eyes. If you add to bluffness and 
a caustic humour something of command and a con- 
sciousness of learning you have the main indications 
of his character. He is of the village, and so his 
clothes are baggy and his hair is untrimmed. Mr 
Kerrigan takes us round the classes. The normal 
subjects are English (including grammar and com- 
position), arithmetic, and geography. Some extra 
subjects — music, Irish as a foreign language, and 
mathematics — are also taught. Twenty-two hours 

118 



MY IRISH YEAR 119 

per week are given to secular instruction. The hours 
are from 9.30 a.m. to 3 p.m., and children attend 
school between the ages of 6 and 17. After sixteen 
the boys stay at home on the farm, go into business, 
or emigrate. Mr Kerrigan calculates that thirty 
per cent, of his pupils go to America. 

Mr Jeremiah Kerrigan is at the service of a system 
arrived at through a balance of power between 
the Government of Ireland and the Churches. 
Seventy years ago the Government were unwilling 
to recognise the Catholic Church by the establishment 
of denominational schools. They established non- 
sectarian schools and allowed the clergymen to 
become the managers in their parish. The Irish 
schools may be defined as secular institutions under 
clerical control. In their rules and regulations the 
Commissioners inform us that the object of their 
system is "to afford combined literary and moral 
and separate religious instruction to children of all 
persuasions as far as possible in the same school, 
upon the fundamental principle that no attempt 
shall be made to interfere with the peculiar religious 
tenets of any description of Christian pupil." This 
regulation is strictly observed, though in the main 
each school is attended by pupils of the same religious 
faith. No religious emblems are shown, and rehgious 
instruction is outside routine. Clear notice of such 
instruction is given, and the pupils of a faith different 
from the majority have permission to withdraw. 
The parish schools under Catholic, Protestant, or 
Presbyterian managers are practically autonomous. 
After some years' service, Mr Jeremiah Kerrigan 
has a position of some dignity. He is looked on as 



no MY IRISH YEAR 

a colleague by the curate and the parish priest. After 
school he promenades the street with the priest. 
They walk up and down discussing affairs as reported 
in to-day's Freeman'' s Journal. "I see that Canon 
MacCabe is dead," says Mr Kerrigan. " Ay, indeed. 
He was nearly elected bishop once. Did you read 
Mr Redmond's speech ? " " Yes ; I wouldn't be 
surprised if we had a letter from the Archbishop in 
to-morrow's paper," and the conversation goes on 
to a discreet conference on parish affairs. The 
priest goes into his house. Mr Kerrigan goes on with 
the paper in his hand. As he passes the barracks 
he salutes the sergeant of the police. 

Mr Jeremiah Kerrigan has a semi-public position. 
He keeps his school up to a certain standard, he has 
charges at Mass, he takes part in the teachers' con- 
ferences. He may not take an active interest in 
politics, but he does intermittent work for the local 
branch of the Gaelic League. As he walks along the 
road with his pipe lighted and the newspaper in his 
hand, he thinks of the English composition which he 
has set the upper class and the mathematical problem 
which he is working out with the monitor. He is 
from the peasantry. In his youth he showed some 
aptitude for study, became a monitor, and went up 
to the Catholic Training College in Dublin. His 
training consisted of two years' grind in which 
neither the dignities nor the amenities of teaching 
were revealed and one crammed as for a minor Civil 
Service appointment. He obtained a school, and 
started with a salary of £55 per annum, a capitation 
grant, and some fees for extra subjects. At present, 
with a capitation grant of 5s. per pupil, he has about 



MY IRISH YEAR 121 

£110 per annum with a residence and some fees for 
extra subjects. Considering the standard of hving 
in an Irish village, Mr Jeremiah Kerrigan is well 
off. What influence has he on the community ? 
All his pupils can read, figure, and write an expressive 
letter. It should be noted that the system which he 
serves does not aim at making the peasantry more 
effective on the land. The tradition of good agricul- 
ture is lapsing in many parts of Ireland, and the 
schools have done nothing to make farming interest- 
ing. Our friend sometimes teaches agriculture as 
an extra subject ; he expounds text-books, making 
the subject as remote as political economy. He 
teaches arithmetic, but not arithmetic as applied to 
farming. The peasants never know where they are 
economically ; they sell their pigs at 4d. per lb. 
and buy American or Russian bacon at 9d. per lb. 
Intelligent children attend school for eight or 
nine years, and they receive a course of instruc- 
tion that is mainly literary. Afterwards they 
read the newspapers and take an interest in 
politics. 

Jeremiah Kerrigan once prided himself that he 
was a disinterested reader, but since his marriage he 
has read only the newspapers. His books include 
some of Dickens's novels, a volume of Scott's poetry, 
Macaulay's Essays, and a book of Anglo-Irish verse, 
" The Spirit of the Nation." He has three young 
cliildren, and his house is fairly trim. He has a 
garden, and this afternoon he is bent on working at 
a horticultural experiment. In the evening the 
curate comes in for a quiet smoke. The two sit down 
to a glass of punch and a game of cards, and in a 



122 MY IRISH YEAR 

desultory way they discuss the personahties of the 

parish. Some forward happenings enter their con- 
versation — the branch of the Gaelic League, the 
Agricultural Society, the visit of the agricultural 
instructor. 



CHAPTER XI 

A GRAZIER 

A ROAD winds like an iron band through a crude 
wilderness of green. There are no crops, there are 
no cottages ; in the course of a day you meet one or 
two people on the road, who return your salutation 
in a low voice and with averted head. They are 
distinctive, the people of the grazing country, heavy 
of foot and heavy of look, bored people who take no 
interest in the weather even. Cattle roam across the 
pastures for a few months of the year, and on their 
increase in bulk the people live. Once the country 
was populated, but an economic change made the 
bullock more profitable than the peasant, and there- 
upon the landlords cleared the country of their 
tenantry. Now when you pass the last house in the 
street of a grazing town — Navan, say — you are in 
the wilderness. 

Michael Fallon is a grazier who holds two thousand 
acres of uncultivated land. In certain parts of the 
country the peasantry have protested against the graz- 
ing system by driving cattle off the ranches. Here- 
abouts the country has been so effectively cleared that 
there are no peasantry to drive his cattle, and so 
Michael remains on good terms with the popular move- 
ment. He is a member of the United Irish League, 
and he subscribes to the party funds. He is a good 

123 



124 MY IRISH YEAR 

type of an Irishman, about forty, big and well built, 
with a spacious head that looks as if it had been 
hammered out of some weighty metal. His face looks 
weary an d strained — bored we would say if Michael were 
a man of the town. It would seem as if his vigour 
and strength had fallen into waste and weariness. 
I fancy that Michael Fallon would smile if he read 
the papers that describe grazing as a prosperous 
Irish industry. He would tell you that it is not 
prosperous, and he knows that it is not an industry. 
On his two thousand acres of Irish territory only 
eight men are employed, to herd cattle, mend fences, 
and open gates. To him grazing is not an industry 
but a gambling transaction. In April he buys young 
cattle (stores) from the small farmers of the West, 
gives them a six months' feed on his rich pasture, 
and then seUs them to the Enghsh or Scotch farmer, 
who finishes the stores into fat cattle. The grazier 
makes from £1 to £3 per head on the transaction, 
but he has borrowed the purchase price from a bank 
that charges five per cent. In Meath they say that 
it is only the first generation of graziers that make 
money. A man coming from a small farm and using 
a small farmer's economies can make money ; but, 
when the children go to public schools, study for 
professions, and force up the scale of hving, grazing 
has little profit. Now and again one hears that the 
importation of Canadian cattle is inevitable, and that 
the Irish grazing interest is menaced. These alarms 
do not make the Meath grazier anxious ; he expects 
to buy stores at a cheaper rate from the Canadians. 

The house and ranch that Michael Fallon owns were 
acquired by his father, an egg dealer, who made 



MY IRISH YEAR 125 

money in a way that would have furnished Balzac 
with a sociological study. The house is a barrack-like 
building, square-built, with harsh, and rigid lines. 
There are no trees around the house, and all the 
business is transacted at the back door. Only a few 
of the twenty-six rooms are inhabited. Michael's 
brother, who is thinking of going on with his veteri- 
inary studies, hangs about the house, and his sister 
is sometimes here. She is reading for the university, 
not because she wants a degree, but because the 
student Hfe gives her an escape to DubUn, where she 
has some social interests. In this part of the country 
there is no social life ; in the town below young men 
and women never have any social intercourse. Women 
stand behind little windows and watch people pass ; 
the cramped parlours are filled with useless furniture, 
and the only books are photograph albums and table 
editions of the poets. Michael Fallon's house has a 
visitor sometimes in the curate, and if Catherine is at 
home he and she go out cycling ; else the men sit 
together smoking and playing cards. 



CHAPTER XII 

THE COUNTRY TRADER 

I PUT forward Mr James Covey as representing the 
Country Trader. His store is not in the village, but 
it has locaHty by being near the chapel. Originally 
a cabin attached to a bit of land, the widow, James's 
mother, made a depot in it for such articles as candles 
and snuff, salt and tobacco. The stock and the 
farm increased, and after a few saving years, the 
house was rebuilt. It stands on an eminence now — 
large, slated, conspicuous with whitewash. Scythes, 
ploughs, and harrows are shown outside the shop. 
Within there are the sacks of flour and sugar, bacon, 
boots, shirts, and travelling trunks. Mr Covey is 
reading over an order just received — " a sack of pol- 
lard, a pair of boots, a spraying machine, and a white- 
wash brush." Mr Covey has an agency from a ship- 
ping company — that is to say, he is emigration agent 
for the district. He is a young man with a bald 
forehead and bhnking eyes. I am known to Mr 
Covey, and we shake hands. " Mr Covey, I saw your 
name in the papers as secretary to the local branch 
of the League. I have credentials, and I would be 
obliged if you would take me to a meeting in the 
district." Mr Covey speaks wavering words. " I'm 
sorry ... I can't take you to the meeting . . . 

Don't belong to the League now . . . I've the post- 
126 



MY IRISH YEAR 127 

office. My brother is secretary to the League, but 
the names aren't changed yet." " I see, Mr Covey." 
I sit down by the counter, and we converse. 

Since the beginning o! his career James Covey has 
been associated with the Home Rule movement. I 
had seen his subscription to the party funds. " The 
Priests and People of Drumneen, per Mr James 
Covey." A branch of the Sinn Fein organisation 
had been founded in the neighbourhood, and this 
division has moved Mr Covey to send a message 
with the last subscription. " In forwarding our 
contribution, we wish to register our appreciation of 
these sterling patriots, justly styled the leaders of 
our race, who stood where Parnell did in their deter- 
mination to win for our country a nation's rights." 
This message was purely an official utterance. When 
we came to the question of Home Rule, Mr Covey 
was unexpectedly cautious. " After all, now . . . 
would Home Rule make us better off ? " The man 
with the bhnking eyes and the wavering speech 
became representative of the real Conservative 
Ireland — of that Ireland which is so profoundly 
sceptical of revolutionary movements and revolu- 
tionary ideas. Behind him I saw farmers, ecclesi- 
astics, officials, the Catholic Conservatives whose 
weight would make an Irish deliberative body the 
most conservative assembly in Europe. 

It is the forenoon of the day, and business in the 
shop is sUght. From the back we hear the sound 
and stir of farm life. James's mother comes into 
the shop. She Hfts her head, and one sees a massive 
face, with living eyes. There is something in her face 
that recalls the look of an old priest, someone near 



128 MY IRISH YEAR 

the sod, yet having authority. She is old but of 
enduring build, and the directing power is still in her 
gaze. She goes from the shop slowly and silently. 
The woman's life has succeeded. Her son has shop 
and farm ; he is on the District Council ; is chairman 
this year, and as such is a member of the County 
Council, an^ is eligible to sit with the magistrates. 
This man of cautious enterprise has many interests. 
A dairy society was established here by the agricultural 
organisation society, but its working was delayed 
through insufficiency of capital. James Covey put 
in enough money to purchase the machinery, but on 
the condition that the co-operative society should not 
extend its operations to a trade in eggs. He is on 
the committee of the dairy society. Recently there 
was talk of forming a co-operative credit society. 
The prospect fell through because James Covey, as 
interested in the local joint-stock bank, could not 
give it countenance. 

This should be a prosperous period for the shop- 
keepers. In the country money has increased, and 
the shop-going habit has become more frequent. 
The farmers sell everything they produce, and buy 
everjrthing they consume. They go to the shop for 
bread, butter, bacon, and in the same store they buy 
seeds and ready-made clothing. The organising 
talent and business capacity left in rural Ireland go 
into the shops, and, in a shabby country town, a 
name across a door may represent a large business in 
trading, farming, and hotel-keeping. Expenses are 
small, income is steady, there are many opportunities 
for petty investment, and so money accumulates. 
One often hears of a shopkeeper who can dower his 



MY IRISH YEAR 129 

daughter with thousands, and of a trader's widow 
who can put an altar into a village chapel at a cost 
of many hundred pounds. In destitute districts of 
the West these accumulations are sometimes made in 
a disreputable way. The peasant is kept in the store- 
keeper's power through long credit, darkened accounts, 
usury. The trader who carries on such transactions 
goes by the name of a " gombeen man." Respect- 
able shopkeepers will often advance the passage 
money to the son or daughter of a poor debtor, 
knowing that the earnings coming back to the emi- 
grant's family will return to the shop. 

I say good-bye to Mr Covey, and I take my de- 
parture. Walking back, I notice a mansion off the 
road. Like so many land-owners' houses, it stands 
derelict, and through the gateway a herd-boy is driv- 
ing Mr Covey's cattle to graze on the demesne. The 
splendid trees look neglected, the garden has gone to 
waste, the laurels and rare shrubs make a sort of 
jungle. The stone-built house shows little sign of 
ruin, though in one of the upper windows a pane is 
broken. In the top corner of the window a swarm 
of bees has gathered. Outside the empty room the 
bees have made a changing cluster of jewels. Likely 
enough, James Covey's grandfather gave unremuner- 
ated labour to the building of this fine place. 
James Covey, the magistrate, might come to hve in 
the mansion. But no. His cattle graze the demesne 
on the eleven months' system, and his chief concern 
with the place is by way of getting the grazing on 
favourable terms. 



PART II 
ABROAD IN BREFFNI 



We had been shifting through the town for hours : 
the band had drawn us together, and now it paraded 
us into the market-square. The politicians, jour- 
naHsts, and local men of the movement, had their 
place upon the platform, and we were packed around. 
For three hours we had endured their speeches. Not 
we, but the band, had become impatient. Its leader 
went behind the platform and interviewed a young 
ideaHst who was about to speak. " The band is wait- 
ing," he said. The succeeding speaker received an 
ultimatum. "I'd advise you to get done with 
talking, for the band has something to do besides 
listening to speeches." This speaker was perturbed, 
and he made a hasty speech. To the disgust of the 
band, another speaker came forward. From him their 
spokesman got a reply that was like a lash across 
the face. He went on the platform, a well-dressed 
young man with a waxed moustache and a neat red 
tie, and in a moment we recognised him as one who 
could harden the emotion of the crowd. He dealt 
only with definite points, and he had a passion that 
never became oratorical. During his speech the band 
was preparing its coup. Simultaneously with the 
last word the signal was hoisted, and the demonstra- 
tion, as regards human articulation, was over. 

The race distinction that made it wonderful for a 

133 



134 MY IRISH YEAR 

Planter's daughter to speak with one of the United 
Irishmen still lived in her face. She leaned from a 
window above a shop that had a Palatine name, 
and the band played the tune that went with the 
words : — 

" In came the Captain's daughter, 
The Captain of the yeos, 
Saying, ' Brave United Irishmen, 
Will ne'er again be foes.' " 

At the other side of the street, standing at her 
door, was a young woman whose face and figure were 
typical of this part of the country. Her black hair 
was as heavy as the crown of a barbarian queen; 
her eyes were full and grey, her face reserved, but 
quickening into proud inteUigence. The strings of 
shops were shuttered, for it was Sunday, and the 
people gathered at their windows or stood at their 
doorways. The stream of sunshine should have 
made for a Southern exuberance, but the crowd 
around the band was silent and unimpassioned. 

Men and girls were selhng fruit, and we got the 
good savour of apples. There were a few red-coated 
soldiers on the side walk. A beggar went round the 
skirts of the crowd, a boy with a twisted body, a 
yellow face and a begging Up that turned spiteful 
when one repulsed him. He had come down from 
Dublin in the excursion, and so had the Cockney 
mandoline-players, the brazen-faced girl, and her 
boy- comrade. A fair, handsome, smiling woman was 
in charge of a roulette table that was surrounded by 
people. Her banter was sometimes Rabelasian, and 
her vocabulary was always the vulgar Enghsh of the 



MY IRISH YEAR 135 

towns. " Play on, gentlemen, I'm only here for a 
holiday, and all I want is a gob-warmer. Now, httle 
girls, run home and milk the ducks. Here you are, 
young fellow, if I had only an egg I'd give you the 
shell. Don't leave the Red idle. Begorra ! the 
yellow men are beating out the white." I had been 
speaking with a woman who was watching the scene 
with the admiration of a child. She was a poor 
woman who might have been kin with those who 
sung ballads in the street. "I'm going home to get 
tea for myself," she said. I asked her would it be 
trouble to give me tea. " No trouble," she said, 
" but my house is a poor house, and you won't like 
the inside of it." I said I would go with her if she 
would take money for the tea she gave me. She 
took a child up in her arms and led the way up a 
steep street. The house was poor indeed, and 
inside it was disordered as the nest of a jackdaw. 
She put the child on the floor and hung a kettle 
over a fire of sticks. 



II 

It was a lodging-house for the people of the road. 
Beggars, ballad-singers and tramp-musicians used 
to he within the chimney nook or behind the wooden 
partition. That night a man, carrying a child, came 
in. The man was dressed in home-spuns, and he 
looked as if he had been at some sedentary employ- 
ment. His face had the nervous excitement that 
one sees in the faces of subdued people when they 
break loose. The child was about six, and his face 



136 MY IRISH YEAR 

might become the face of a cold reserved and briUiant 
man. I asked the elder if he had travelled far. 
" I'm starting back on a long journey," he said. 
" Myself and Mamis the child went rambhng. Last 
August we went from our own place in the County 
Monaghan. These are fine bright days. I think 
it will be a good year for the country. I think 
we'll be better off from this time, with the help of 
God." Later in the night I gave him my coat to 
wrap round Manus. The child went asleep. Then 
the man told me of his travels. 



Ill 

Michael PhiHbeen was his name, and he was a 
weaver. He had been reared in the County Cavan, 
but his father's place and his own place was in the 
County Monaghan. When he was young (about the 
age of Manus, he told me) his mother had some 
dispute with her husband, and, taking the child 
with her, she left him and came to her own people 
in this part of the country. " I found my mother's 
people different to the people in Monaghan," said 
Michael PhiHbeen. " They were fond of hunting 
and sporting, and music and stories. My uncle 
taught me to play the flute, and I soon could play 
it very well for my age. In two years my mother 
went back to my father's home, and I went with her. 
Then my father put me to the loom, and he began to 
teach me the trade he had got down from his father 
and from the fathers before him. I worked in the 
house ; but I often longed for my uncle's house, 



MY IRISH YEAR 137 

for the music at night, the fun, and the story-telling. 
I stole away when I was a lad, big enough to know 
better, and I went into the County Cavan. I became 
a strolling musician, pla3dng along the roads on the 
flute, the one instrument I had power over. I used 
to play at cross-road dances, and in the house when 
there would be some festivity ; but I was happiest 
when there was no gathering about me, when I would 
sit on a grassy ditch and play to myself. But of 
course I wouldn't be left to that life. My father 
sent for me again and again, but I refused to go back 
to the loom. My uncle came and advised me to go 
back to the shelter and the good trade. Then my 
mother came, and I craved her to let me go my own 
way. She told me that my father was getting old 
and wanted to see his son at the loom. I was heart- 
broken, I refused to go back. I kept to the roads, 
though I knew that I was not a rambler out and out, 
and I often used to think of the kindness of the 
settled life. I had set my father aside and would not 
listen to my mother, and maybe what fell on me 
afterwards was a judgment from God. Some sickness 
came on me, and my teeth dropped away, and so I 
lost power over the flute, the one instrument I could 
play. 

" I went back to my father's country ; he settled 
me down at the loom, and I kept to the business very 
steadily. My father had one trouble on his mind, 
and that was to find wife for me, a woman that 
would keep me to the loom when he would be gone. 
Well, he made a match for me after my mother 
died, and the match turned out well enough. Manus 
was the one child, and before he was born my father 



138 MY IRISH YEAR 

had died, and he left the loom and the shelter to me 
and my wife. 

" Year after year I worked on at the weaving, 
sitting in the house. I kept from the roads, and I 
would not let my mind be on the music. If anyone 
around asked me for a tune I would first shake my 
head. Sometimes, if I was in a house where music 
was getting played, I'd feel the heart within me 
become twisted, and I would have to get up and 
go out of the house. And there would be no sport 
nor company in my own house. My wife had no 
care for these things, indeed she only wanted to 
keep her hands busy. And now I'll tell you some- 
thing about my woman, as you're not hkely to meet 
her nor to carry the story further. Her people were 
very respectable, but they met with misfortune, 
and they were evicted from their own holding. My 
wife herself had to go to the workhouse for a while. 
Now, that was always on her mind, and she made it 
her devotion to make a good place for ourselves — 
a house that she could show to the friends who 
sometimes came to visit her. And so she was always 
working, and our little house and garden was not 
enough for the spirit that was in her. She worked 
abroad, washing in this house, sewing in that, weeding 
in this man's garden. And all the time I would be 
sitting at the loom, thinking things over, talking to 
myself, or to Manus, the child, who was beginning 
to grow up and to give a sort of heed to me. I 
talked so much about the County of Cavan that the 
child knew the place as well as myself. Manus 
made no friends, and me and him were all and all 
with each other. Well, last year I began to take 



MY IRISH YEAR 139 

him about the country while his mother was abroad 
working. I would take him to the top of the hill 
or to the shore of the lake. I began to find my eyes 
for birds' nests, and no matter how thick the hedge 
I could show Manus the hedge-sparrow's nest ; I 
could find him the lark's nest on the ground, or the 
robin's in an old shoe, or in a tin can. And I was 
beginning to feel that it wouldn't be such a desperate 
thing to go into the County Cavan and stay there 
for a while, for my child was growing up and his 
mother was in no way depending upon me. July 
came, and long before daybreak I'd find myself awake, 
and the child would be awake, too. Then Manus 
would talk to me about the County Cavan, and I 
promised the child I would go away before the 
weaving commenced and take him with me. 

" Soon after my woman began to bring in the 
stuff for the weaving, and I had to put the first 
threads on the loom. That day Manus brought in 
the nest of a blackbird, and my heart was nearly 
broken when he left it down before me. I felt that 
the good of my life was going while I was putting 
in the threads. I talked to Manus, and in the end 
I told him that we would start on the journey next 
day. Then my wife came in ; she had more stuff 
for the weaving, and she began to take the little 
pictures down off the wall, for she wanted to begin 
white-washing there and then, as she had heard 
some friends of hers were coming to the pattern, 
and they would be likely to visit her. Now, what 
she said about friends' visits gave me the opening 
for what I wanted to say, but my heart was beating 
so fast that I had to let the chance go by. Then 



140 MY IRISH YEAR 

after a while I began to say how I had friends, too, 
and that I wanted to visit them. She didn't take 
that easy on account of all the stuff that was in the 
house for the weaving, but my mind was made up, 
and she had to give in to me. I told her I was taking 
Manus, and she said : ' Well, let you take the child 
with you, for he has your own temper, and he will 
never be bid by me.' Then she made provision for 
us, and sent up warm clothes for Manus, and in the 
morning we took to the road, leaving the yarn to be 
woven by Peter Martin, the travelKng weaver, who 
used to stay in our house. 

" We walked part of the way, and I carried Manus 
part of the way, and for part of the way we got lifts 
on the carts. We went over a good many miles on 
the first day. I had to tell Manus all about the 
woods, for ours is a bare country, and he only saw 
the trees by themselves. And when I told him about 
the squirrels he was in dread, for I told him of the 
way they get angry and let on to bark when they see 
us making a claim on the woods. I told him of the 
times we used to have in the bird-catching season, 
when I'd set my cage in the open field, and how 
my jewel of a singing bird would draw down the 
flocks about him. Ah ! them were happy times 
for me, and it's no wonder I remembered them and 
could talk about them to Manus ! The world hadn't 
made itself hard to me then. I could put the flute 
to my mouth and play when the cages were gathered 
up on the bank. And when I'd go home when 'twas 
dark, there was always the song or story by my 
uncle's fire. It was no wonder I remembered them 
days, and that my stories of them times could shorten 



MY IRISH YEAR 141 

the road for Manus ! An end came to the first day's 
rambhng, and I asked for shelter at a house by the 
road. The woman made us welcome to the fire, 
but she had no bed to give us. I took down the 
reaping hook, and I went outside and cut the tops 
of the heather and brought in a bed for myself and 
Manus. The sweet- smelling tops of the heather ! 
The best bed that a man ever lay upon. 

" The crops didn't look well in our own country. 
The potatoes that were dug made us think of a poor 
prospect before us. But the prospect seemed blacker 
in the country that we were going into, for they 
seemed to have a heavier and more constant rain. 
It was a poor country, and we saw it in the falling 
rain ; and that made the country more desolate. 
We didn't see any comfortable houses on the second 
day's journey ; we saw wet hills with lone sheep 
climbing them, and we saw bogs with stretches of 
canavan, and all their white heads drooped in the 
rain. On a wet, dark night we came to a house. 
It was a poor little place, but we could go no further. 
They gave us a bed by the hearth, but their fire was 
only the wet sods and the bits of sticks. The children 
that sat round were white and quiet, and when we 
broke the cake we offered them a share. Shame- 
faced enough the children took the bread. When 
we were making a start in the morning the woman of 
the house came to us. ' Turn back,' she said, ' for 
there's misfortune on this country. The rain was 
constant on the ridges, and our Httle children will 
die of the hunger.' She followed us out on the road. 
' Turn back,' she said, ' turn back.' 

" We went on, but my heart was low enough, I 



142 MY IRISH YEAR 

tell you, when I carried Manus in my arms, and saw 
how poor-looking were the children that we met 
along the roads. We were coming to the place of 
my mother's people, but how did I know whether 
the people there would not be poorer than the people 
we met, and how did I know whether there would be 
any comfort for Manus, or any welcome before us 
at all ? Then we came to a place that I knew well, 
a green space with a cromlech in it and big stones 
around. It was there we used to have the dances 
in the old times. I gave Manus the shelter of the 
cromlech, and I sat beside him with very lonesome 
feelings. I remembered the dances there and how 
I used to make music for the couples, and I remem- 
bered a girl who used to sit beside me when I played, 
and who used to dance with me when I danced. 
It was no wonder that I was lonesome and dispirited, 
and without the courage to face the journey before me. 
" We sat there by the stones for a while, Manus 
and myself watching the rain falling. The road 
was bare and empty for a time, and then we saw a 
lone woman, a traveller or a tramp, coming along. 
The woman came over to talk to us, and we found 
out that she was going to the country that we had 
left. She wasn't going by the road, but by a short 
way across the hills. She didn't know us at all, 
but all the same she had news for us. My wife's 
brother, a parish priest in America, had come back 
to Ireland on a visit. The woman had seen him in 
the place where she was last, and she knew that the 
priest was gone to visit at our home. ' He is a grand 
high-up man,' said the travelling- woman, ' and the 
house where he is does be filled up with money and 



MY IRISH YEAR 143 

presents. He's staying with his sister for a week 
only, but the weaver's house will be worth going 
into while he's there. I'll be at Mrs PhiUbeen's 
to-morrow, for I know a short way across the hills.' 

" ' Will you go back ? ' said I to the child. ' The 
priest will have lovely things for you, and I don't 
think that there's any warmth or comfort before us.' 
' No,' said Manus, ' we won't go back till the rise 
of the year.' I let the travelling- woman go, and 
I took Manus by the hand, and we went on towards 
the house that I knew. And Manus walked on so 
manfully that my own courage came back to me. 
We came to my uncle's house, and it was a happy 
story with us from that until the present minute. 
My uncle had no children of his own, and he and his 
woman were overjoyed to see Manus. And their 
turf was well saved, and they had the meal and the 
bacon. And we showed Manus the wood and the 
lake, the squirrel gathering up its store, and the crane 
rising out of the tufts, and the badger coming out of 
its hole. Then came the rise of the year, and Manus 
and myself made the start for home, well satisfied 
with ourselves, though indeed the kindly people 
weren't satisfied that we should go." 



IV 

Outside the town I came on three of the bad people 
of the Irish roads — on two men and a woman of the 
tinker tribe. The boss-tinker held up a cur by the 
back of the neck and offered to sell it to me. The 
other was chasing a young crow that had been dropped 



144 MY IRISH YEAR 

out of the nest. When I looked back the first had 
taken up his bass and ash-plant and was walking 
a yard ahead of the miserable woman, his mate. 
The other was casting stones at the young jackdaws 
that had been discoursing amongst themselves in 
their habitations above the green branches of a Hme 
tree. " What is the tinker's curse ? " said I once 
to a knowledgable man. " I will tell you," said he. 
" Only myself knows it. He never goes under a 
roof. Here's what the tinker says when he passes 
by your house and mine : — 

" ' You build houses ! ay, like the crows, you put stick and stick 

together. 
May I see a scatter of sticks and the kites a-chase through the 

wood ! 
You live man and wife, you say, like the goats, two and two 

a-tether. 
For fear ye would reach to the hedge-tops, and the wild taste 

get in your blood ! ' " 

The roads are bare and empty and the country 
is hardly inhabited : along the Farnham estate there 
are few farm-houses and few signs of crops. I discover 
an Orange Lodge by the side of the road, and I remem- 
ber that I am now amongst the Orange farmers. 
Now and then I hear an accent that reminds me of 
North-east Ulster, and sometimes I see a hard- 
featured type of face that is distinct from the Gaehc 
stock of Cavan. Yet, about here, many Orange 
famihes have Breffni clan-names such as Brady, 
Reilly, Rourk, Sheridan. But whether of the Planter 
breed or of the native stock, the Protestants here- 
abouts form a distinct population. This was a 
planted district, and the strife between the Pro- 



MY IRISH YEAR 145 

testant settlers and the native Catholics has been an 
issue to the memory of the Hving. The people have 
a vivid tradition of the events that happened here 
during the war of the Catholic Confederation. The 
county is the pass to Connacht, and the fringe of the 
confiscated province of Ulster. ... A Breffni 
Captain, back from Spain, rode this way once. The 
clansmen around him were shouting for a victory 
won, but the O'Rourk or the O'Reilly rode in silence, 
thinking how Owen Roe O'Neill would smite the 
Scots and check the English Puritans, and how, 
without artillery, the " undertaker " towns might 
be reduced. Later, stark upon his horse, an Irish 
scout galloped with the tidings that Owen Roe was 
dead in Lough Oughter Castle, near hand, and that 
the Saxon, Ohver Cromwell, was on Irish ground. 
An Irish Walter Scott would make this empty country 
full of memories. The people remember a man of 
their own who was a vigorous leader under Owen 
Roe O'Neill— Myles O'Reilly who was called " Myles 
the Slasher." They present Myles as if he had Uved 
and died within their memory. Historical docu- 
ments imply that when Cromwell ended the war, 
Myles O'Reilly took service with the King of Spain. 
He died here, and was waked here, say the people. 
They tell how the O'Reillys won back their own 
territory, but brought home Myles, their leader, dead. 
For three days and three nights they waked him 
in the O'Reilly stronghold with soldiers and clansmen, 
priests and musicians, beggars and keening women 
thronging round. If we had a Walter Scott he 
would make this tradition memorable. 

This was a planted district, and consequently the 



146 MY IRISH YEAR 

Catholics have bitter memories of confiscation and 
persecution. But between Protestants and CathoHcs 
no feud exists now. Protestants and CathoKcs 
form distinct populations. They will remain dis- 
tinct for long, but when the question of Irish self- 
government is out of the way, the ditch that divides 
will be filled up or broken down — I do not know 
which happens to a ditch. 

I am making my way by a pecuhar edifice that is 
on a lump of a hill a long way off. This shell of a 
building is called " Fleming's Folly," by the people. 
There was a Captain Fleming, who, in dread of losing 
his estates, kept away from the Catholic muster. 
Sarsfield, say the people, rode up to Fleming's Castle. 
Captain Fleming was away, said the servant. Sars- 
field was furious at the evasion. There was a marble 
table in the hall and he struck it with his sword, 
sphtting the marble across. " Tell him," said he, 
" that Patrick Sarsfield came to Fleming's Castle." 

That was during the Williamite wars. One could 
continue the story of the country through the great 
houses that I can see from the road. Fine avenues 
lead up to them, but the mansions are falling into 
ruin. These great houses were built at a cost of 
fourpence halfpenny per day, per man. Labour 
in men and horses was forced from the peasantry. 
Sometimes the building was helped by government 
subsidy, for these great mansions were administrative 
centres and barracks in disaffected districts. I 
know a deserted mansion where doors and window- 
shutters are painted to look like wood ; they are of 
iron, and they have their port-holes. When their 
houses were built, the gentry had sold their parlia- 



MY IRISH YEAR 147 

ment. What is their after history ? They make 
" clearances " and arm Orange Lodges, they de- 
cUne to impotence, and are presented with a " bonus." 
They drift away or take themselves out of the 
country. Some of these mansions are being made 
into educational estabHshments — the Agricultural 
College at Ballyhaise was a landowner's seat — and a 
few have been turned into convents. The greater 
number must go into the decay that soon overtakes 
the deserted house. The class that is succeeding 
the landlords do not want to pay cess on these 
mansions, and at present they would as lief live in 
the gate lodges. 

Two peasants with a pair of greyhounds in leash 
came out of a forsaken avenue. I asked one of them 
who had owned the mansion. " O'Rouike, King of 
Breffni," said he, good-humouredly. " Did you not 
know that this is the place that Thomas Moore 
meant in the song, ' The Valley lay Smiling before 
Me?'" They went their way then. Later, I encoun- 
tered them in a wayside public-house. " This is a 
fine dog," said I, patting one eager head. " I wouldn't 
say so," said the man who had spoken to me first. 
" But the other hound," said he, impressively, " was 
runner-up for the cup." They were coming from a 
coursing match : every year for forty years they had 
attended it. They had prolonged their boyhood these 
gentle good-humoured men : they were happy in 
their fellowship and happy in their possessions : 
they enjoyed their tramp across the hills, their 
refreshment on the wayside, their raillery of a pre- 
tentious outsider. 

The tinkers were approaching when we left the 



148 MY IRISH YEAR 

public-house — ^the man with the bass and ash-plant 
first, the woman dragging after him, and the un- 
attached tinker following with the dog. They stood 
for a while in random consultation, then they 
moved inside. These tinkers did not seem to be 
loth to go under the roof of a public-house. 

The Irish provincial papers are probably the 
worst written in any European language. The sheets 
are filled with reports of meetings of Boards of 
Guardians, and proceedings at petty sessions. Yet 
a good deal of national expression gets into a local 
paper such as I have in my hand. I see that at a 
meeting of a certain District Council, a letter in 
these terms was read. It was from a labourer 
complaining about a smoky chimney : — 

" I have ripped open the back, belly, and side of 
this infernal chimney, and even put a coaxyorum 
on its summit, but, wonderful to relate, the smoke 
retreated hastily, made for the window, and would 
not even look at my coaxyorum. 

" So great is the suction downwards that no lark 
can warble o'er, no jackdaw or jay can touch its 
summit, else they will get sucked down and cre- 
mated in this inferno. 

" ' I may break, I may shatter tlie house as I will, 
But the smell of the smoke will hang round it still.' 

" The walls are in mourning, the ceiling the same, 
and my wardrobe, etc., saturated with the intolerable 
smell of smoke. I must tell you that I am a widower 
and mean to have another try in the matrimonial 
market and select a fair colleen, only I would be 
afraid I might be indicted for woman slaughter if 



MY IRISH YEAR 149 

she got suffocated. But the two stone-hearted 
district councillors should be in the dock also, because 
they would not even look into the Black Hole of 
Calcutta — for it is nothing else." 

It was decided to attend to this chimney. 

When the tinkers passed me they were singing 
together, and they seemed happy enough. When 
I came upon them again the woman was crying. 
She called out to me, " sir, sir, he has cut me, 
sir. Look, I'm bleeding." I spoke to her : the 
man hardly interested himself in the business. " She 
fell into a ditch," he said, without caring whether 
I accepted his statement or not. " He cut me with 
an ash-plant across the cheek. Look, I'm bleeding." 
Sure enough there was a red spot upon her cheek, 
and the man had an ash-plant in his hand. " If 
she had to keep sober she wouldn't have fallen into 
the ditch." He called to the dog, " Here, Guff, 
Guff — where's the dog gone to ? " He was not 
interested in the complaints of the woman, but he 
was interested in finding the dog. We went along 
the road in a string, the three tinkers and myself. 
They were a scubby, undersized lot. The man with 
the bass had a certain rotundity and a certain pro- 
phecy of obtaining his satisfactions. The two men 
went off together, the unattached tinker now taking 
up the hunt for the dog. The woman sat by the 
roadside, crying to herself. She wore an ugly black 
cape and an ugly black straw hat. She sat for a 
while, miserable, with hanging mouth and tears 
upon her face. I came up with the other two again. 
" He struck me with his belt," the unattached 
tinker was saying. " Then I struck him and he 



150 MY IRISH YEAR 

knocked me down. I called over the Hearseman 
to save me." " And what did he do ? " said the 
other. "He knocked Mac down and I stepped on 
with Mac and hoisted him into the ditch. He had 
no coat on, and my waistcoat was pulled off without 
me taking off the coat. The back was pulled out of 
it. Then I let Mac through the ditches and bushes, 
and everywhere in the dark." 

A company of engineers was passing to their 
wagons. The man with the bass took off his cap, 
made an obeisance, produced a broad-sheet and began 
to sing a ballad of farewell. The unattached tinker 
was equally business-hke. He picked up Guff by 
the scruff of the neck and hawked him amongst the 
soldiers. The woman kept quiet so as not to em- 
barrass the business. But the soldiers marched by. 
The man with the bass folded up the ballad-sheet and 
abruptly ceased his song. For a long stretch of the 
road I had them behind me ; the two men whistling 
or talking of wayside fights, and the woman moaning 
again. 



That evening I had an adventure with two members 
of the army of occupation, or, as some would prefer 
to call them, the army of no occupation, the Royal 

Irish Constabulary. Between the town of B and 

the village of C I came upon a brace of con- 
stables. They were lying in the ditch, smoking 
their pipes. As I passed I remembered that there 
was an inquiry in my mind that the patrol were 



MY IRISH YEAR 151 

competent to answer. I determined to raise the 
question on our next meeting. Outside the town 
I met the children of my friends and turned back. 
We caught up a country woman who was carrying 
some packages and a heavy basket. The children 
helped her with the parcels, and I took possession 
of the basket. When we came to the pohce again I 
was one of a group of country people. They were 
still in the ditch. I turned to one with the query, 
" Would you tell me the meaning of a proclamation 
that I saw in Carrigallen last Tuesday ? " Now, 
unawares, I was asking an invidious question, as this 
proclamation had reference to the withdrawal of 
extra pohce from the County Leitrim. " The meaning 
of the proclamation — would you like to know ? " 
" Yes." " Why didn't you read it ? " "I was too 
far away." " Then you can go to Hell." There 
was nothing to be done at the moment, so I lifted 
the basket and went on with my friends. Later I 
came on the patrol ; they were leaning against the 
parapet of the railway bridge. " Your pardon, 
gentlemen," said I, " were you the constables I met 
a while ago ? " " Would you Uke to know ? " said 
one, and " What's that to you ? " said the other. 
I asked for an apology for rudeness, but they said, 
" Go home now, or we'll throw you over the bridge." 
Their insolence came from the fact that they regarded 
the country people as Eastern officials regard the 
provincials. Such a woman sold porter illicitly ; if 
her friends were uncivil to the constables they could 
show their power. So-and-so's cliildren grazed a 
few cows along the side of the road ; if their father 
raised his head there would be a case of technical 



152 MY IRISH YEAR 

obstruction. I saw how easy it was for the Royal 
Irish Constabulary to fall into the insolence of Turkish 
officials. 

Next morning I called at the barracks. The 
sergeant, good, easy man, was recovering from an 
attack of delirium tremens and was " shook " as 
the saying is. He asked the constables to apologise, 
but again they used the word '* Hell." I might have 
communicated with the authorities had I not a pre- 
judice against addressing myself to DubHn Castle. 



The Royal Irish Constabulary 

The Royal Irish Constabulary are a force of 11,000 
armed men, distributed through 1475 stations. 
They are not under local control, but are ordered 
directly from DubHn Castle. For their upkeep the 
Imperial power raises £1,400,000 in Ireland, an 
amount largely in excess of the grant for national 
education. In the main they are a rural force, but 
they are extended to the cities of Belfast, Cork, 
and Londonderry. In country places individual con- 
stables look bloated and patrols have an easy-going 
air. One comes to regard the Constabulary as a 
rural police with Httle to do. But let us go into 
Connemara and enter a police hut in a lonely place. 
The constables are probably idle and unbuttoned, 
but there are rifles and bayonets to hand, and the 
hut has the position of a blockhouse. 

The life of Ireland has been forced back on the 
land, and the most powerful of Irish efforts has been 
directed to the liberation of the land in the interest 



MY IRISH YEAR 153 

of the majority. Against all forms of agrarian 
agitation stand the Royal Irish Constabulary with 
their rifles and bayonets, their drill and revolver 
practice. Why does Murty Flynn join a force that 
stands against the interests and passions of his class ? 
There is the bribe of a livelihood, and the funda- 
mental muddle of the human mind prevents him from 
seeing the conflict in clear terms. They tell of a 
constable who had to assist at the eviction of his 
father, and Murty himself knows of a recruit, sent 
down with an extra levy to the County Clare, who 
found himself guarding a rancher's cattle against his 
father's hazel stick. The direct conflict rarely occurs. 
Murty's father has four sons. One of them will 
inherit the farm, and another may obtain the means 
of getting some land. For the rest there is emigra- 
tion or casual labour. Murty is not studious enough 
to become a teacher, nor has he enough apphcation 
to succeed as a shopkeeper. He is a big, healthy 
lad, with a fair intelligence and a fondness for out- 
door life. He offers himself to the Constabulary. 
There are many appHcations, but Murty obtains a 
place, and his people are as glad as if they had got 
two acres of land. 

Constable Murty Flynn begins with a renumera- 
tion exceeding that of the assistant teacher in the 
local school. With twenty-one shillings a week, 
he has various allowances, and is lodged in the 
barrack at a slight charge. Promotion is almost 
inevitable, as there are 1859 sergeants and 451 
acting-sergeants to 8380 constables. He is sure 
of a pension, and is under no necessity of saving. 
There are three Constabulary men in the station — 



154 MY IRISH YEAR 

an easy-going sergeant with a wife and family, 
Murty Flynn, and another constable. His day is 
really idle. He goes on parade at 9 a.m., when there 
is elementary drill, then for a while the three sit in 
the station smoking, going over the rules of the 
Constabulary and the Acts of Parliament governing 
the action of the poHce. Two go on patrol at 11 a.m. 
— that is to say, they stroll through the country for 
a couple of hours. They attend the arrival and. 
departure of the DubHn trains, secure the newspapers, 
and read them on their way back. There are more 
patrols in the evening, and each constable has to put 
in six hours per day in outdoor duty. Sometimes the 
constable has to collect statistics for the Department 
of Agriculture, and some writing has to be done. 
Murty Flynn is well content with the life. He knows 
in the force men who are good Irishmen, good 
Catholics, and good citizens. After seven years he 
can obtain permission to marry, and many good- 
looking girls would be glad to wed a man who can 
take them away from the hardship of the farm — 
a man of assured position, moreover, with a pension, 
who need not make himself anxious about a dowry. 
Murty's comrade intends to remain single for the 
next twenty years ; then he can retire with a pension 
of at least £42 per annum, when he intends to marry 
a girl with a dowry and set up a shop. 



MY IRISH YEAR 155 

VI 

The Fiddler at Home 

I saw the fiddler in a little Cavan town ; he was 
playing a rollicking tune known in that part oi the 
country as " The Swallow's Tail " ; he put the bow 
across the strings lingeringly, and his head went 
with the movement oi his hand. The musician was 
a young man under ioitj, with a humorous but 
deUcate face. He was lame. After " The Swallow's 
Tail " he struck up a fine tune, a tune that had in 
it depth, gaiety, and pride. The tune and the 
musician's way of playing it attracted me, and when 
I had an opportunity I talked with the fiddler. His 
name was Hartley Ryan, and we had some friends 
in common. Bartley was not really a man of the 
roads. He was a local musician settled in a house 
not far from the town. He asked me to visit him, 
and on a fine July evening I went to make my celidh 
in the musician's house. His house was on the rise 
of the country. A steep road went past the chapel 
and up to the few houses that neighboured Hartley's . 
Above the musician's one could have three counties 
in prospect — Cavan, Leitrim, Longford. One could 
look to the hills in Leitrim and to the Moat of Granard 
in Longford, and the great evening space of bog 
and field and lake was the Valley of Brefltni, the scene 
celebrated in Moore's song " The Valley lay Smihng 
before Me." When I came down from the rise I 
found Bartley at his door and he brought me into the 
cabin, a one-roomed house with a window the size 



156 MY IRISH YEAR 

of a dinner-plate. There was the hearth with stools 
about it, a bed in a recess of the wall, a larger bed 
at the other side, a table and chairs. The place 
had the narrowness of a rabbit-hutch, but the people 
were no more confined than the chickens in the nest. 
Beyond the threshold there was space enough. 

Bartley's wife moved about to get supper for us ; 
she was a silent, gaunt woman, and her size made the 
interior seem cramped. In the chimney recess sat 
another visitor ; he rose up and welcomed me when 
I came in and then returned to his seat. There was a 
pipe in his mouth, his hat was at the back of his 
head, and he kept a tight grip on an ash-plant. He 
had been to the fair, and good spirits were in him. 
He was drunk, but very shrewdly drunk. He 
expressed himself in winks, nods, gestures, and made 
no audible remark until a cup of tea had dissipated 
the deadness of the drink within him. I remember 
him well, a tough old fellow, with what they call 
" the cordial eye." He kept a shrewd possession 
of his hat, his stick, and his tongue. 

Bartley played over the tune that had attracted 
me, and again I enjoyed the inspired movement 
that had so much gaiety and so much pride. He 
knew the tune as " The Royal Blackbird." 

While the fiddle was playing a young girl stole in 
and seated herself on the bed. She was the fiddler's 
child, a girl of sixteen, and she remained shy and aloof. 
I do not know if Bridget had good looks, but she 
brought with her a part of beauty, a grace that was 
like the grace of a fawn or some other wild, ungrown 
thing. 

In his childhood Bartley had been lamed by an 



MY IRISH YEAR 157 

accident. His people followed the business of the 
road, deaHng in eggs and fowl, and for a while the 
lame youth followed the trade, but he was never a 
success in the business of buying and selHng. They 
say that at one time he had a pony and car on the 
road, but the destiny that makes a poet by spoiling 
a bread-winner kept up with Bartley. His horse 
became disabled and his capital disappeared. Then 
he took out his fiddle and played at the markets. 
He makes money by his fiddle, playing sometimes in 
the towns and sometimes at weddings and festivities. 
He is well Hked for his music and for his gentle and 
humorous nature. I was told that one of the farmers 
paid in Hartley's rent with his own. This seemed 
to me an incredible piece of altruism on the part 
of an Irish farmer, but I was assured of the fact. 
Bartley 's rent is very Httle, and might not be missed 
by a farmer in good circumstances. And who is 
Bartley's patron ? He is none other than the man 
who sat in the chimney recess the night of my visit, 
our friend with the implicating eye-lid and the tight 
grip on the stick. 

Bartley's wife gave us tea, and afterwards we 
talked of the traditions of the place. I was anxious 
to get traces of a poet of the locaUty, a man named 
MacBrady, who wrote in Irish about a century ago. 
Bartley had heard of MacBrady, but for a full account 
of the poet he referred me to the man in the chimney 
recess. " I'll tell you about MacBrady," said our 
friend, who was now articulate. He took the pipe 
out of his mouth and made this statement. Bartley 
had heard it before, but he followed the narrative 
with the deepest interest. 



168 MY IRISH YEAR 

" The house I'm living in now was a pubHc-house 
in my grandfather's time. When my father was a 
little fellow the poet came into the house. He called 
for two quarts of whisky (whisky was cheap then). 
He filled the first quart into a noggin and mixed 
oaten meal with it. Made porridge of it and ate it 
with a spoon. Then he drank the other quart. He 
made the poem after that." 

" There you are now," said Bartley. " He made 
the poem after that." 

" I had that from them who knew," added my 
informant with a strong conviction of the importance 
of his information. 

" Do you know anything of the poem? " 

" Divil a bit of me knows." 

Some more tunes were played for me and then I 
went away. I remember the people as gentle, kindly, 
and friendly, and I remember the Httle cabin as one 
of the most charming houses I was ever in. 



VII 

Bartley Mulstay is a poet : therefore in the opinion 
of the country he is a person to be conciliated. Here 
they have the old story-teller's conception of the 
man of words : he is a satirist primarily and his 
effusions inspired by hatred and contempt can 
inflict positive injury. A man named Hamilton 
who lived near the place had the reputation for keep- 
ing a good glass of whisky for the carters who came 
to his place. Bartley called, and, in accordance 



MY IRISH YEAR 159 

with the privileges of the poets, he demanded refresh- 
ment. The servant, not knowing the man, handed 
him a mug of buttermilk. He drank it and went 
down the road highly incensed. Now Hamilton was 
writing in his office ; he saw the poet pass and he 
guessed the disaster. " What did you give that 
man ? " said he to the servant. " Buttermilk," 
said she. " Oh, murder," said Hamilton, " we're 
all destroyed." He took the bottle and glass in his 
hand and ran after Bartley. " I won't take it," 
said the unrelenting poet. " I'll take nothing from 
you until I've put out what's in my mouth." " Don't 
put it out," said Hamilton. " I must put out what's 
in my mouth to say." " Put it out then, but don't 
let it be of much harm to me." Thereupon Bartley 
said the rann " before he had put the garlic into it." 
He never told it to the people because he did not 
want it remembered, and, until Hamilton died, he 
and Bartley were friends. 

I was to spend the night in Bartley's, and the next 
day the poet himself was to accompany me to the 
market of Clooney. I remember that a white calf 
of a day old was on the floor when I went into his 
house, and that a black-eyed girl, Bartley's daughter, 
was seated in the chimney corner, a fiddle in her 
hands. Bartley's wife, an easy fat and placid 
woman, came down from the sleeping-room that was 
aloft and welcomed me. Bartley seated in his 
backed chair was somewhat reserved. When he 
broke silence he was more inclined to talk of politics 
and philosophy than of poetry. He had been shown 
a book in which it was written that everything tliat 
happened, to the smoking of a pipe, was ordained 



160 MY IRISH YEAR 

and laid down for a man. He intimated that he 
would give many volumes of the hves of the saints 
to possess that book. " Julia would read it for 
me," said he, " for lately I'm indisposed for reading." 
Bartley was really illiterate, but he was not proud 
of that distinction. The people say that when the 
statement about their land purchase came, Bartley 
got told of it, and had it read to him. Then, with 
the document in his hand he announced its contents 
to the people. They say that he delivered the 
terms correctly although he held the paper upside 
down. I found that Bartley was pessimistic about 
Home Rule. He maintained that Ireland could 
never succeed because of her treatment of Parnell — 
a man, he said, who was mentioned in the prophecies. 
O'Connell, too, was in the prophecies, for was it not 
said of him : — 

" This is Daniel O'Connell the great Liberator, 
The descendant of Gaedhal of the Scythian line ; 
The Chronicles of Fame his worth have recorded. 
From earliest history down to the present time." 

To the English Government Bartley Mulstay would 
say two lines that were given in the Ancient Books : — 

" At the Battle of Aughrim you brought away our bone, 
You took the marrow out of it, but we want the scrapings home." 

An admirable resume of the Financial Relations 
between Ireland and Great Britain ! 

We came to poetry and romance in this way. I 
used the phrase " dangerous Breffni " ; and " Is that 
in the books ? " Bartley asked. 1 said that " Breffne 
Baoghlaigh," " dangerous Breffni," is used in an 
Ossianic ballad, that is, in a poem about Finn Mac- 




A SU.MMKR NKllIT IN I! A l.l.YCASTLE. 
(From an oil sketch by Jack IS. Yeats.; 



MY IRISH YEAR 161 

Cumhal. Bartley said that he disremembered (he could 
never have known) that particular poem. He asked 
me for the story. Now the story related in that 
terse ballad is involved and I could not well remember 
it, but, as it happened, I had in my pocket an early 
edition of MacPherson's " Ossian's Poems translated 
by James MacPherson, Esq., with critical Disserta- 
tions on the Poems of Ossian and on the ^ra of 
Ossian." I had bought it off a Dublin book-barrow 
for the amusement of reading the symmetrical 
pseudo-history that was set forth in lengthy pre- 
faces. Now I rejoiced in my possession of " Ossian's 
Poems," for here was an opportunity of bringing 
MacPherson's apocrypha to those who had lately 
been the custodians of the Ossianic tales and poems. 
After this, I thought, some traveller will find amongst 
the Midland peasantry the tale of Fingal. But 
interest in MacPherson is dead, and the discovery 
will create no controversy. However, a fit audience 
was before me, and a famous book was in my hand. 
I began. The misty figures and the voluminous 
rhetoric are very different from the terse and vivid 
poetry of the original documents. ^ 

MacPherson's is eighteenth-century oratory. But 
eighteenth-century oratory was just the stuff for my 
audience. " It was then that Gaul, the Son of Morni," 
stood Hke a rock in the night. His spear is glittering 
to the stars ; his voice like many streams. ' Son 
of the battle,' cried the Chief, ' O Fingal, King 

' See " Dunaire Finn/' the " Poem book of Finn,'^ in the Irish 
Text Society's publications. 

2 Goll, son of Morna, Bartley knew this name, but he did not 
recognise Finn MacCumhal as Fingal. 

L 



162 MY IRISH YEAR 

of Shells ! let the bards of many songs soothe Erin's 
friends to rest. And, Fingal, sheath thy sword of 
death, and let thy people fight. We wither away 
without our fame, for our king is the only breaker 
of shields. When morning rises on our hills, behold 
at a distance our deeds. Let Lochlin feel the sword 
of Morni's son, that bards may sing of me. Such 
was the custom heretofore of Fingal's noble race. 
Such was thine own, thou King of swords in battles 
of the spear.' " 

A young man who had a sack across his back 
had come into the house. Beside the dresser and in 
the shadow he and Julia stood. '* ' Son of Morni,' 
Fingal repHed, " I glory in thy fame. Fight ; but 
my spear shall be near to aid thee in the midst of 
danger. Raise, raise the voice, sons of the song, 
and lull me into rest. Here will Fingal lie amidst 
the wind of night. And if thou, Agandecca, art 
near, among the children of thy land, if thou sittest 
on a blast of wind among the high-shrouded masts 
of Lochhn, come to my dreams, my fair one, and 
show thy bright face to my souL' " 

" It's the best I ever heard," said Bartley. " It 
is, in truth," said the young man. " But is there 
nothing in it about the young women," said Juha. 
I looked for a phrase. " Deugala was the spouse of 
Cairbar, Chief of the plains of Ullin. She was covered 
with the light of beauty, but her heart was the house 
of pride." " That's what the lads do be saying 
about Julia," said the young man. " Often have 
I fought, and often won at the battle of the spears. 
But blind, and tearful and forlorn, I now walk with 
little men. Fingal, with thy race of battle, I 



MY IRISH YEAR 163 

now behold thee not. The wild roes feed upon the 
green tomb of the mighty king of Morven ! Blest 
be thy soul, thou king of swords, thou most renowned 
on the Hills of Cona." " Amen to that," said Bartley, 
" blind and forlorn he walks with mean little men." 
" It's my own case, bedad. Phil, you might bring 
out what you have in the bag." Now, one of the 
things that was in Phil's bag was a small jar. Its 
contents were poteen, they told me. I took a dram 
out of a cup, and I heard myself repeat : — 

" The milk and the ale are drunk every drop, 
And a dram won't stop our thirst this night." 

"There's many's the good poem in the book that 
came out of," said I. 

" Come, Son of my Soul, and drain the cup, 
You'll get no sup when this life is past." 

"Yes," said I, "it's a good song that I'm sapng. 
It goes like this : — 

' The yellow bittern that never broke out 
In a drinking bout might as well get drunk. 
For his bones are thrown on a barren stone, 
Where he lived alone like a hermit monk.' " 

" Bartley Mulstay," said I, "you're a satirist. I know 
your ranns. Do you remember the person who lived 
near my grandfather's, the man who was so proud 
of his apple garden ? He brought you through it 
one day, but he never offered you any of its produce ; 
and when he turned you out on the road, he locked 
the gate behind you. You have made that man to 
be remembered," said I. 



164 MY IRISH YEAR 

" grief that Ned in Eden did not stand, 
He'd hinder Eve to break the Lord's command ; 
If the Tree of Knowledge was watched like these, 
Each man might live in peace and die at ease." 

Isn't that it, Bartley Mulstay ? Then there was 
the epitaph you made for that old hedonist Flavian 
Ward. When the new parish priest saw the in- 
scription upon the tombstone, he ordered a mason 
to cut it away. But the clan of the Wards resisted 
the revisers, and your inscription remains to this 
day. I've seen it myself, Bartley Mulstay. 

" But, Bartley, my man," said I, " we fear that 
you have been intimidated by the trouble made 
about old Flavian's tombstone. Else why have you 
put such a conventional sentiment into your own 
epitaph. It's known to the people, and, believe me, 
Bartley," said I, " it doesn't do your life sufficient 
credit : 

" Remember, man, as you pass by, 
As you are now, so once was I. 
As I am now, so will you be 
Prepare for death and follow me." 

"I looked for something more striking, Bartley," 
said I. 

The woman of the house bade us good-night and 
went aloft. " It's a rabbit's rest she'll have," said 
Bartley, " for in a while she'll have to put us on the 
road for Clooney." " We'll keep the talk up until 
she comes back," said I. " I can repeat poems 
against any man in Breffni. And, Bartley Mulstay," 
said I, " you'll have to tell us the rann you made 
upon the black-mouthed man of the Hamiltons." 
" No," said Bartley, " there's a promise I made at 



MY IRISH YEAR 165 

confession — not to tell that rann to any but the man 
that can put a poem of his own composing beside." 
" Then," said I, " we'll hear the rann, for, like 
Finn, I can prove my poetry." Thereupon I recited 
a ballad. There was alloy in the metal I tendered. 
The ballad was not altogether my own. I had made 
it up out of the remains of a political song that was 
known a generation ago in another county. My 
effort had a striking success. When it was finished, 
and when congratulations were over, Bartley sat 
cogitating for a while. Then said he to the young 
man, " Phil, are you doing any courtin' these times ? " 
" Phil and me's going out to look at the cow," said 
Julia. She put the shawl across her head and went 
out of the door : Phil stepped after her. " After 
I composed the rann," said Bartley Mulstay, " I 
made a song praising Hamilton. That drew the 
venom out of it." He sat still for a while. Then he 
held up a shut fist to the beam of his roof, and, like 
a man taking the oath, he repeated the rann : — 

" May a messenger come from the higli place of God, 
To bear up your soul to a throne — 
But a robber be robbing him on his way back, 
And your fall be as dead as a stone. 

May your tables be laden with gold and with jewels, 
And your hands be upon them for proof, 
AVhen the Devil whips in by your beggarly door, 
And tears your red soul through the roof." 

" It didn't do him any harm," said Bartley, " no 
harm at all. That was on account of the mildness 
and goodness I put in the other rann, and because 
I kept it from the mouths of his enemies." 



166 MY IRISH YEAR 

The others, when they came in, asked me to 
repeat my ballad. I recited it again. Then they 
all questioned me about the personages who were 
figured as birds. " The Kerry Cock," was, of course, 
O'Connell. But who were the others — the black- 
bird, the hawk, the wild-duck, the lark. They were 
the offspring of my invention : they were in the air 
like the birds themselves : I could not reduce them 
to newspaper fact. Nevertheless I ransacked my 
historical memory, and in the end I constructed a 
consistent comment. Phil said that the ballad 
should be upon the roads. Bartley Mulstay said that 
he would stand with his bare feet in the snow to 
hear it sung. He said he would teach it to the 
ballad -singers. Maybe he did. But I feel bound 
to confess that I have never heard it upon the roads. 
And now I shall set it here, my one contribution to 
the popular literature of my county. 



VIII 

The Birds that left the Cage 

It is not my intention to disturb the public peace, 
But I wish to sing about some birds that's in a certain 

place : 
Find them out if you can ; they are neither fools nor 

knaves, 
But birds that's at their liberty, that scorn to be 

slaves. 



MY IRISH YEAR 167 

And we're all singing, 
Our cause triumphant springing, 
Our ears with peace are ringing, 
Since my birds they left the Cage. 

I mean to tell their titles, but their names I won't 

explain : 
They feed upon no corn, but what's of the true grain : 
They won't be caught by chaS nor by salt upon the 

tail. 
Nor frightened by a clappers, and their notes w^ill 

never fail. 

And we're all singing. 
Our cause triumphant springing. 
Our ears with peace are ringing, 
Since my birds they left the Cage. 

The first of my birds is the leader of the flock, 
His voice is full of clangour, for he is my Kerry cock. 
0, many is the dung-hill my cock has trodden down. 
And when he claps his wings it's with fear he makes 
them frown. 

And we're all singing. 
Our cause triumphant springing, 
Our ears with peace are ringing, 
, Since my birds they left the Cage. 

There's another in the tribe, and of him I'll say a 

word : 
He's known where he flies for my true and brave 

blackbird : 



168 MY IRISH YEAR 

His nest is strong and wide, and it's plain for all to 

see 
His youngsters soon are flushed and their cry is 

" Liberty." 

And we're all singing, 
Our cause triumphant springing, 
Our ears with peace are ringing, 
Since my birds they left the Cage. 

I have another bird : he has neither song nor call, 
But when he takes his flight, he puts silence on them 

all. 
In the middle of the wood, you wiU hear them scream 

and cry 
When my hawk upon the bough shows his young 

to pounce and fly. 

And we're all singing, 
Our cause triumphant springing, 
Our ears with peace are ringing, 
Since my birds they left the Cage. 

There's another of them loose : he has for his domain 
The lakes and skies of Ireland and Ireland round 

again. 
He is my wild-duck free, and no fox can snatch at 

him. 
For he's a wary bird, and he can both dive and swim. 

And we're all singing. 
Our cause triumphant springing. 
Our ears with peace are ringing, 
Since my birds they left the Cage. 



MY IRISH YEAR 169 

I have another bird : they don't like him on the 

wing, 
For when he rises up in song he's sure to sing : 
And now my bully-boys, give your voices to the lark. 
He loves the sod of Erinn and he strives against the 

dark. 

And we're all singing, 

Our cause triumphant springing. 

Our ears with peace are ringing. 

Since my birds they left the Cage. 



IX 

It was about horses, women, and music, and, in 
the mouth of Maelshaughlinn, the narrative had the 
exuberance of the fair and the colour of a unique 
exploit. I found Maelshaughlinn alone in the house 
in the grey dawn succeeding his adventure. " Tliis 
morning," he said, " I'm the lonesome poor fellow 
without father or mother, a girl's promise, nor my 
own little horse." He closed the door against a 
reproachful sunrise, and, sitting on a little three- 
legged stool, he told me the story. 

Penitentially he began it, but he expanded with 
the swelHng narrative. " This time last week," 
said Maelshaughlinn, " I had no thought of parting 
with my own little horse. The English wanted 
beasts for a war, and the farmers about here were 
coining money out of horseflesh. It seemed that 
the buyers were under a pledge not to refuse any- 



170 MY IRISH YEAR 

thing in the shape of a horse, and so the farmers 
made horses out of the sweepings of the knackers' 
yards, and took horses out of ha'penny lucky-bags 
and sold them to the English. Yesterday morning 
I took out my own little beast and faced for Arvach 
fair. I met the dealer on the road. He was an 
EngUshman, and, above all nations on the face of 
the earth, the English are the easiest to deal with in 
regard of horses. I tendered him the price — it was 
an honest price, but none of our own people would 
have taken the offer in any reasonable way. An 
Irishman would have cursed into his hat, so that he 
might shake the curses out over my head. The 
Englishman took on to consider it, and my heart 
went threshing my ribs. Then he gave me my price, 
paid me in hard, weighty, golden sovereigns, and 
went away, taking the little horse with him. 

" I sat down on the side of a ditch to take a breath. 
Now you'll say that I ought to have gone back to the 
work, and I'll say that I agree with you. But no 
man can be wise at all times. Anyway, I was sitting 
on a ditch, with a lark singing over every foot of 
ground, and nothing before me but the glory of the 
day. A girl came along the road, and, on my soul, 
I never saw a girl walking so finely. ' She'll be a 
head above every girl in the fair," said I, ' and may 
God keep the brightness on her head.' ' God save 
you, Maelshaughlinn,' said the girl. ' God save you, 
my jewel,' said I. I stood up to look after her, 
for a fine woman walking finely is above all the sights 
that man ever saw. Then a few lads passed, whistling 
and smnging their sticks. ' God give you a good 
day,' said the lads. ' God give you luck, boys,' said 



MY IRISH YEAR 171 

I. And there was I, swinging my stick after the 
lads, and heading for the fair. 

" ' Never go into a fair where you've no business.' 
That's an oul' saying and a wise saying, but never 
forget that neither man nor immortal can be wise at 
all times. Satan fell from Heaven, Adam was cast 
out of Paradise, and even your uncle broke his pledge. 

" When I eg me into the fair there was a fiddler 
playing behind a tinker's cart. I had a shilling to 
spend in the town, and so I went into Flynn's and 
asked for a cordial. A few most respectable men 
came in then, and I asked them to take a treat from 
me. Well, one drank and another drank, and then 
Rose Heffernan came into the shop with her brother. 
Young Heffernan sent the glasses round, and then I 
asked Rose to take a glass of wine, and I put down 
a sovereign on the counter. The fiddler was coming 
down the street, and I sent a young lad out to him 
with silver. I stood for a while talking with Rose, 
and I heard the word go round the shop concerning 
myself. It was soon settled that I had got a legacy. 
The people there never heard of any legacies except 
American legacies, and so they put my fortune down 
to an uncle who had died, they thought, in the States. 
Now I didn't want Rose to think that my money 
was a common legacy out of the States, so by half- 
words I gave them to understand that I had got my 
fortune out of Mexico. Mind you, I wasn't far out 
when I spoke of Mexico, for I had a grand -uncle 
who went out there, and his picture is in the house 
this present minute. 

" Well, after the talk of a Mexican legacy went 
round, I couldn't take any treats from the people. 



172 MY IRISH YEAR 

and I asked everyone to drink again. I think the 
crowds of the world stood before Flynn's counter. 
A big Connachtman held up a Mexican dollar, and 
I took it out of his hand and gave it to Rose Heffernan. 
I paid him for it, too, and it comes into my mind now 
that I paid him for it twice. 

" There's not, on the track of the sun, a place to 
come near Arvach on the day of a fair. A man came 
along leading a black horse, and the size of the horse 
and the eyes of the horse would terrify you. There 
was a drift of sheep going by, and the fleece of each 
was worth gold. There were tinkers with their carts 
of shining tins, as ugly and quarrelsome fellows 
as ever beat each other to death in a ditch, and there 
were the powerful men, mth the tight mouths, and 
the eyes that could judge a beast, and the dark 
handsome women from the mountains. To crown 
all, a piper came into the town by the other end, and 
his music was enough to put the blood like a mill- 
race through your heart. The music of the piper, 
I think, would have made the beasts walk out of the 
fair on their hind legs, if the music of the fiddler 
didn't charm them to be still. Grace Kennedy 
and Sheela Molloy were on the road, and Rose 
Helfernan was talking to them. Grace Kennedy 
has the best wit and the best discourse of any woman 
within the four seas, and she said to the other girls 
as I came up, ' Faith, girls, the good of the mission 
wiU be gone from us since Maelshaughhnn came into 
the fair, for the young women must be talking about 
him coming home from the sermon.' Sheela Molloy 
has the softest hair and the softest eyes of anything 
you ever saw. She's a growing girl with a spice of 



MY IRISH YEAR 173 

the devil in her. ' It's not the best manners,' said 
I, ' to treat girls to a glass across the counter, but 
come into a shop,' said I, ' and let me pay for your 
fancy.' Well, I persuaded them to come into a shop, 
and I got the girls to make Sheela ask for a net for 
her hair. They don't sell these nets less than by the 
dozen, so I bought a dozen nets for Sheela's hair. 
I bought ear-rings and brooches, dream-books and 
fortune-books, buckles and combs, and I thought 
I had spent no more money than I'd thank you for 
picking up off the floor. A tinker woman came in 
and offered to tell the girls their fortunes, and I had 
to cross her hand with silver. 

" I came out on the street after that, and took a 
few turns through the fair. The noise and the crowd 
were getting on my mind, and I couldn't think with any 
satisfaction, so I went into Mrs MoUoy's, and sat for 
a while in the snug. I had peace and quiet there, and 
I began to plan out what I would do with my money. 
I had a notion of going into Clooney on Tuesday, and 
buying a few sheep to put on my little fields, and of 
taking a good craftsman home from the fair, a man 
who could put the fine thatch on my little house. I 
made up my mind to have the doors and windows 
shining with paint, to plant a few trees before the 
door, and to have a growing calf going before the 
house. In a while, I thought, I could have another 
little horse to be my comfort and my consolation. I 
wasn't drinking anything heavier than ginger ale, so 
I thought the whole thing out quietly. After a while 
I got up, bid good-bye to Mrs MoUoy, and stood at the 
door to watch the fair. 

" There was a man just before me with the pea and 



174 MY IRISH YEAR 

thimble, and I never saw a trick-of-the-loop with less 
sense of the game. He was winning money right and 
left, but that was because the young fellows were 
before him like motherless calves. Just to expose 
the man I put down a few pence on the board. In a 
short time I had fleeced my showman. He took up 
his board and went away, leaving me shillings the 
winner. 

" I stood on the edge of the pavement wondering 
what I could do that would be the beating of the 
things I had done already. By this time the fiddler 
and the piper were drawing nigh to each other, and 
there was a musician to the right of me, and a 
musician to the left of me. I sent silver to each, 
and told them to cease playing as I had something to 
say. I got up on a cart and shook my hat to get 
silence. I said, ' I'm going to bid the musicians play 
in the market square, and the man who gets the best 
worth out of his instrument will get a prize from me.' 
The words were no sooner out of my mouth than men, 
women, and children made for the market square like 
two-year olds let loose. 

" You'd like the looks of the fiddler, but the piper 
was a black a'vis'd fellow that kept a troop of tinkers 
about him. It was the piper who said, ' Master, 
what's the prize to be ? ' Before I had time to think 
the fiddler was up and talking. ' He's of the oul' 
ancient race,' said the fiddler, ' and he'll give the prizes 
that the Irish nobility gave to the musicians — a calf, 
the finest calf in the fair, a white calf, with skin as 
soft as the fine mist on the ground, a calf that gentle 
that the smoothest field under him would look as 
rough as a bog.' And the fiddler was that lifted out 



MY IRISH YEAR 175 

of himself that he nearly leapt over a cart. Somebody 
pushed in a young calf, and then I sat down on a 
stone, for there was no use in saying anything or 
trying to hear anything after that. The fiddler 
played first, and I was nearly taken out of my trouble 
when I heard him, for he was a real man of art, and 
he played as if he were playing before a king, with the 
light of Heaven on his face. The piper was spending 
his silver on the tinkers, and they were all deep in 
drink when he began to play. At the first sound of 
the pipes an old tinker-woman fell into a trance. It 
was powerful, but the men had to tie him up with a 
straw rope, else the horses would have kicked the 
slates off the market-house roof. Nobody was quiet 
after that. There was a thousand men before me 
offering to sell me ten thousand calves, each calf 
whiter than the one before. There was one party 
round the fiddler and another party round the piper. 
I think it was the fiddler that won ; anyway, he had 
the strongest backing, for they hoisted the calf on to 
a cart, and they put the fiddler beside it, and the two 
of them would have got out of the crowd, only the 
tinkers cut the traces of the yoke. I was saved by 
a few hardy men, who carried me through the market- 
house and into Flynn's by a back way, and there I 
paid for the calf. 

" When I came out of Flynn's the people were 
going home quiet enough. I got a Hft on Fardor- 
rougha's yoke, and everybody, I think, wanted me 
to come to Clooney on Tuesday next. I think I'd 
have got out of Arvach with safety, only a dead- 
drunk tinker wakened up and knew me, and he gave 
a yell that brought the piper hot-foot after me. First 



176 MY IRISH YEAR 

of all the piper cursed me. He had a bad tongue, and 
he put on me the blackest, bitterest curses you ever 
heard in your life. Then he lifted up the pipes, and 
he gave a blast that went through me like a spear of 
ice. 

" The man that sold me the calf gave me a luck- 
penny back, and that's all the money I brought out 
of Arvach fair. 

" Never go into the fair where you have no 
business." 



X 

I am with big farmers and district councillors. 
Four of them sat near me : we are in Clooney, in the 
house kept by Marcus O'DriscoU, and in the room 
reserved for select people. I sat watching the street 
for sight of Bartley Mulstay who had gone through 
the market on a secret mission. The four who were 
farmers and district councillors were at a table 
between me and the window. One was a pachyder- 
matous man, who talked continuously, bearing down 
the others by weight of a heavy body and a self- 
centred mind. His face had been cleared by a semi- 
circular sweep of the razor, but there was aftergrowth 
and stubble and outlying fences. Next to him was 
a farmer who had the full beard of a Boer general. 
At the head of the table was a short-nosed man, who 
had a quiet voice, and opposite the pachydermatous 
man, and bearing the weight of his argument, was a 
serious-minded young farmer who had a pale forehead 
and brick-coloured hair. " Wool is up," said the 



MY IRISH YEAR 177 

short-nosed man. The pachydermatous one bore 
down on him. 

" Indeed it's not up." 

" There seems to be a shade of improvement. Un- 
washed wool at elevenpence a pound." 

" That's less than the rise of a farthing in the 
pound. That's nothing." 

" Well, I seemed to get the price more freely." 

" You only thought so. Cattle is down ten 
shillings a hundredweight. Six pounds a head less 
than last year. We'll be all in the poorhouse. I've 
bespoken my place. I'm first, I tell you." He had 
the habit of recurring to his thought and expression 
again and again. This gave the impression that 
there was power and significance in everything he 
said. " Did you read my letter in The Banner ? " 

" I saw it," said the serious young man. 

" I tell you it's great," said the pachydermatous 
man. " It's the best they ever got. ' With 
lamentations I write and send one and sixpence to 
the testimonial to my early friend, my intermediate 
friend, and my late friend, my friend in need and my 
friend indeed — the intrepid ideal gladiator of our 
country who now lies incarcerated in a prison cell, 
for the pure love of his constituency, and who is ready 
to reach the arm of friendship to his enemies, and 
fight their battle if they only say they will ascend the 
pedestal of justice. Oh, who could be his councillor ! 
And what recompense shall be made him, save his 
own counsel and soliloquy who came by predestina- 
tion to be the pulveriser of ignominious and pusil- 
lanimous land monopolists who stand the danger of 
taking the d at the back of the great indomitable, 

M 



178 MY IRISH YEAR 

defiable, and indefatigable ' F. W.'s ' drumstick. 
Hoping that future happiness will give future history, 
good and better things to record in favour of the 
great liberator. I am, with deference, his, yours, etc' 
" P.S. — Please file my lines that my friend may 



He was hugely delighted with this horseplay of 
language. When he had read the communication, 
he thrust his head out of the window, and illustrated 
before our humanity an enormous dorsal area. " I 
used to smoke cigarettes," said the young farmer, " but 
I found that they did not help me in buying or sell- 
ing, so I smoked no more." The pachydermatous 
one came into the conversation, causing, as it were, a 
thousand-tons displacement. 

" I'll teU you something about myself. I wouldn't 
smoke a cigarette — nor a cigar. If you gave me a 
sixpenny cigar I'd smoke it, and after that I'd fill my 
pipe and burn six ounces of tobacco." 

" It's too much," said the short-nosed man. 

" You do wrong," said the heavily-bearded farmer. 

" It wouldn't be good for you," said the serious 
young farmer. 

" No constitution could stand it," said the victim. 
" I'll tell you what I do. When I go to bed I smoke a 
full ounce of tobacco. I leave the pipe on the chimbley- 
piece to light before I get up." " Yes," said he, 
" I'm kUhng myself. I know it." He appealed to 
the serious young man. " James," said he, " you 
often saw me at the fair at five o'clock in the morning 
with a pipe in my mouth." 

" Indeed I've seen it." 



MY IRISH YEAR 179 

" At five o'clock in the morning, mind. And I'd as 
lief have it as my breakfast. Are you going, men ? 
Get me a couple of men that would do ditching for 
me." 

" Ditching's heavy work at this time of the year," 
said the serious young man. 

" 'Twould drag the hearts out of men to have them 
working in ditches with the soil sticking to their 
shovels," said the heavily-bearded man. 

" I want to put the place right before I go to the 
poorhouse. Send me the men, and I'll feed them. 

" FastiBg and prayers are good for the sinner, 
.But the man at work has need of his dinner." 

The others went out. He who I have named pachy- 
dermatous stuck his head out of the window and went 
on burning his six ounces of tobacco. When he turned 
in, a genteel dame was seated at the table. She wore 
the sort of shawl that goes with mittens and a smell 
of lavender. How did it come that she was in Clooney 
on a market day ? I could swear that she was from 
New England, and that her ancestors had gone out 
with The Mayflower. 

" Any objection, ma'am, to smoking ? " 
She babbled without any stops. " Not if the 
tobacco is good. My father always smoked Virginian 
tobacco, and my mother began to smoke too after 
being years with him — not a pipe, for that would not 
be considered ladyHke in our locahty, but a seegar." 
He thrust out liis lower hp, snorted, and turned his 
back on her. It was the sneer of a bull. Then came 
in a large woman, clothed in black, with round and 
frightened eyes. A depressed man was with her. 



180 MY IRISH YEAR 

She had just identified him in the street. They were 
friends, but had not met for years. She looked as if 
she kept a shop in a prosperous town. The man 
raighl: have been an auctioneer or a clerk in a solicitor's 
office. 

" So you buried your grannie ? " she said. 

" Three months ago. We had the announcement 
in all the papers." 

" And what about Sara ? " 

" Sara's in England. She got burnt — an oil stove. 
It's not known whether she's marked for life. Michael 
can't travel on account of his heart. When I was 
going to Glasgow ho came to the trahn to sec me. 
He's white. He'll be handing in his gun soon." 

" Do )^ou hear anything from Dunn's now ? " 

" I wrote to them when they got the legacy, and 
I had one letter." 

" I hear they aren't a bit better off than they used 
to be." 

" A mare kicked and broke two of her hind legs. 
The bog used to be some good lo tliem. But the 
landlord has set the bog to the tenants." 

"■ And Gracie — any sign ? " 

" Divil a sign. And she's not young now." 

" I hear James is sick." 

" He's always sick. The poor man is only there." 

" Wliat else was I going to ask you. Did Daniel 
give much of a fortune with Kate ? " 

" No. Not nearly as much as was reported." 

" And how is your own people — Owen, Henry, Sis." 

Then our iiost, Marcus O'DriscoU, came up to me. 
I took it upon myself to say that there was a bad 
price for cattle. 



MY IRISH YEAR 181 

" Them Dutch countries are under-selHng us all," 
said he. " There's a district councillor gone out, and 
I told him last October that lie would get no more than 
what he paid for them." 

" Where did he buy ? " said I. 

" In the town of Ballina, and from a man who came 
from near Foxford. 

In my mind's eye I saw the country round Foxford 
with its stretches of water and its water-logged fields. 

" They didn't get much to eat near Foxford," 
said I. 

" They got plenty to drink," said Marcus O'DriscoU. 
He permitted himself to be humorous. " There's a 
deal of water round Lough Coun." 

" You were in Mayo then," said I. 

" I was," said he. " At that time I was dealing 
in the produce of our rivers." 

" Salmon," said I. He nodded gravely. I went 
on to talk of the salmon of the Blackwater. 

" I'll tell you something," said Marcus O'DriscoU. 
I felt that a secret was being imparted to me. " I 
know a man who is paying fifty pounds for a mile 
of the Blackwater, and be it known to you it's not 
worth my pipe." I mentioned the Shannon at Castle- 
connell. " Not a dozen salmon will be taken between 
Castleconnell and Athlone this year," said he. " I 
could tell you a river that has more salmon in it than 
all the rivers of Ireland put together. And, further- 
more, I could tell you why the salmon has forsaken 
the other rivers of Ireland." 

But my friend Farral Gilroy came up to us. Marcus 
O'DriscoU saluted him. Then he went away. 

" There goes a wise man," said I. " He knows 



182 MY IRISH YEAR 

the cattle on the ridge of the hills and the salmon 
swimming against the rivers. And he can tell me 
why the salmon has forsaken the noble streams of 
Erinn." 

Farral Gilroy moved me out. " If you eat a beef- 
steak with me," said he, " I'll tell you a story about 
Marcus O'DriscoU." 



XI 

He began in this way. He said, " Martin Fallon, 
my uncle, is the brother of Hugh Fallon, the grazier. 
You probably know Martin Fallon : a strong farmer, 
and a man of cows. I have known my uncle for 
twenty-five years. In the course of a quarter of a 
century I have seen only one variation in my uncle's 
appearance. To all appearance his clothes are always 
the same clothes, and his beard is always in the same 
stage of growth. You have seen him at the fair, 
and you will have noticed that he always carries the 
same ash-plant, that his coat is always of the same 
blue-black material, that his waistcoat is of corduroy, 
that it is sleeved, and that his trousers are of corduroy 
also. One morning lately I awakened in my uncle's 
house in Aughnalee. As my faculties were slowly 
flowing back to me the door opened, and my uncle 
entered the room softly. He was translated. First 
of all, he was dressed for the road. He carried a 
stick ; and the stick even was changed : it was not 
the familiar ash-plant, it was a blackthorn, and it 
had a silver band near the top. His coat was of a 
deeper tint of blue, and of a more grandiloquent cut. 



MY IRISH YEAR 183 

His waistcoat was black ; it was cut low, and showed 
a wide expanse of starched shirt. Below the shirt 
there was room for a massive chain of silver. His 
trousers hung with a remarkable perpendicularity ; 
and such was the condition of his boots that I 
marvelled that I had not been awakened by the 
rubbing and the accompanying reverberations. He 
was shaved, not here and there as was his imme- 
morial custom, but with a clear and exhaustive sweep. 
He had on a hat, black, high-crowned, and of a re- 
markable width of brim. He went to the mirror 
and surveyed himself from various points of view. 
He took off his hat and said, ' In the name of God.' 
Then he went out of the room, closing the door softly 
behind him. 

" Now, my uncle could not be making preparations 
for a marriage, for that excellent woman, my aunt, 
is still in being. He was not going to arrange a 
match for either of his sons — they have not come to a 
marriageable age — nor was he going to take a daughter 
to a convent. Why then this laborious transforma- 
tion ? and why was my uncle going abroad on the 
first clear day, and the potatoes awaiting spraying ? 

" The mystery drew me from bed. As I was eating 
my breakfast my aunt conveyed clues by many 
hints. My uncle was an ambassador. On account 
of his silence and discretion he had been selected to 
go on a mission. That mission was to the house 
of our parish priest. The mission was undertaken 
on behalf of a certain young man, newly returned 
from America. The negotiation on which my uncle 
had entered would be long, it would have many 
stages, its ultimate object, however, was a meeting 



184 MY IRISH YEAR 

between the priest's niece and the young farmer, 
whose name was Stephen Geoghan. Then there 
would be a conference between the elders with a 
view to arranging a marriage. 

" When I understood the situation," said Farral 
Gilroy, " I went outside, sat on a ditch, and pictured 
to myself the opening negotiations. My uncle enters 
to Father Gilmartin. It would be after breakfast, 
and the priest would be reading a Latin tome. 
Father Gilmartin is a student of Aquinas. He has 
encouraged the co-operative movement, since he 
discovered in the Summa the metaphysic of co- 
operation. But you are not to picture the priest 
as a worn student ; Father Gilmartin is old and 
heavy ; his body moves slowly ; and his mind, clear 
and definite as it is, moves slowly also. Imagine 
the contact of the two minds in this novel and com- 
plex subject. In the terms of the case the negotia- 
tions would be dehcate, the terms elusive. And 
Father Gilmartin was appallingly deaf. The meeting, 
as I saw it, was fundamental as opposed to accidental 
comedy. 

" My uncle returned. The negotiations had been 
long and uncertain. Miss Casey, Father Gilmartin's 
niece, was going back to Dublin on Wednesday next ; 
but a meeting between herself and Mr Geoghan had 
been arranged. The lady, her brother. Father Casey, 
and Father Gilmartin would pass through the town 
of Clooney on their way to the railway station. They 
intended to call to the house of Marcus O'DriscoU. 
Mr O'Driscoll was a close friend of the Geoghan's. 
Stephen could call in on Wednesday, and thus the 
parties would meet informally at the house of a 



MY IRISH YEAR 185 

mutual friend. The plan commended itself to my 
aunt. So much was accomplished, and my uncle's 
reputation would not be submitted to a further 
strain. The affair was now with God and Marcus 
O'DriscoU. Mr Stephen Geoghan then came in. 
After salutations my uncle silently produced the 
whisky. He alluded to the respectability of Miss 
Casey's family, to the numerous priests that that 
family had produced, to the fact that Miss Casey 
was related, not remotely, to a bishop. He alluded 
in guarded terms to her probable dowry. He dwelt 
on her good looks, her education and refinement. 
Thus he worked up to the triumph of his own 
diplomacy. My uncle left down the glass and grasped 
Stephen by the hand. ' Be at Marcus O'Driscoll's 
on Wednesday,' he said, ' and there you'll meet the 
young lady, with her uncle, the priest, and her brother 
who is a priest, too.' I went out then and left them 
to their conference. I saw my uncle standing at 
his door watching Stephen Geoghan parting of the 
house of his friend, Marcus O'DriscoU. My uncle 
had not yet taken off his official garb. There was a 
glow of satisfaction about the whole of the man. 
In such a warm glow I wish to leave my uncle. You 
will observe that our family comes out of the affair 
with credit and with an enchanced reputation. 

" I now take up with that remarkable friend, 
Marcus O'DriscoU. Fortunately for my story you 
know him. Otherwise it would be difficult for me 
to shadow forth the personality of Marcus O'DriscoU, 
Marcus of Clooney. I would have to discover a 
language at once exuberant and discreet. You re- 
member the last time we fell in with Marcus ; he had 



186 MY IRISH YEAR 

been unfolding to a companion a scheme of agrarian 
reform based on state purchase, and he went back 
on the argument for our benefit. He spoke weightily, 
insinuatingly with intimacy. When he heard your 
name mentioned he had excellent advice to offer 
as to your attitude towards Trinity College. It was 
Marcus of Clooney who advised Mr Parnell on a 
celebrated occasion. I can see him now in the street 
of Clooney, speaking to the Chief, respectfully, 
deferentially. His attitude would be that of the 
private soldier to whom an accident has given the 
key of the enemy's position. His advice would be 
respectful and disinterested. You would suspect 
Marcus O'DriscoU as being from the south of Ireland. 
As a matter of fact he is from Munster. He has been 
close up forty years among us ; but he still regards 
himself as a stranger in our midst. He has confided 
to me that, with the best will in the world, he cannot 
quite understand our Midland type. He finds us 
very clannish ; and our conduct, political and private, 
has often been a disappointment to him. In spite 
of our clannishness, Marcus O'DriscoU has created 
for himself an extensive acquaintance amongst our 
people. He was very intimate with the elder Mr 
Geoghan, and always professed a great regard for 
the son. He received Stephen warmly. That young 
man beat about the bush for nine-tenths of his visit, 
but at last he informed Marcus of the lie of matters. 
Marcus received the information with becoming 
discretion. He said little. He walked down the 
street with Stephen, and shook hands with him 
many times. He then went back to his shop, and 
with unexhausted vitality listened to an old woman's 



MY IRISH YEAR 187 

story of how her chickens had perished of an unknown 
disease. He called in a friend who was passing by, 
and advised him not to let doctors interfere in a 
family case. Afterwards he arranged a course of 
conduct for a grazier who was anxious to surrender 
a farm. Could the destiny of the house of Geoghan 
be in safer hands ? Marcus was a vital personality. 
He was, as it were, discretion become self-conscious. 

" The representative of the house of Geoghan is 
unknown to you. Stephen has a good position. 
He is a good-looking young man, but one who is 
hesitant and extremely self-conscious. Stephen's 
self-consciousness, has been increased since his return 
from America. He brought back a stock of American 
clothes ; and he dresses in the American fashion. 
He has always the consciousness that the town is 
agape at his appearance. Really the sensation has 
long since been exhausted ; and the town only 
thinks of him as a kindly young man who calls for 
' cocktails ' when he wants ' half -ones.' On Wednes- 
day morning Stephen took a new suit out of his 
trunk and dressed himself carefully. He had in- 
tended to drive into Clooney ; but, by the time the 
horse and car had been got ready, he had come to 
the conclusion that a yoke in the street would be an 
embarrassment. He took his bicycle out ; but 
reflection told him that a bicycle would leave him 
in the town too early. He decided to walk. He 
turned back from the gate to put on a pair of 
leggings. The leggings were yellow, like the washed 
leg of a duck. Stephen Geoghan was tall and of 
a good figure ; the leggings and the American suit 
became him very well. He was such that any 



188 MY IRISH YEAR 

girl might take a fancy to him. He walked into the 
town. 

" Stephen walked to the town, his thoughts scat- 
tered like sheep on a hill. He paused when he came 
in sight of Clooney : he was overcome by the sight 
of that wide, open street. Then he made up his 
mind to advance boldly, and go into the house of 
Marcus O'DriscoU. He would probably have done 
this if he had not become conscious of his leggings 
at this moment. They were bound to attract atten- 
tion. The people would stand at their doors, or in 
groups in the street, and watch him pass. They 
would see him go into Marcus O'DriscoU's shop. 
If Miss Casey had arrived the mind of the town would 
jump to his errand. ' Marcus O'DriscoU is making 
a match for the Yank,' ' Will the christening be 
with cocktails, I wonder ? ' No, he couldn't face 
the town. He turned to the hedge, plucked out a 
branch of woodbine, and considered his next move. 
He elaborated a course of conduct : he would walk 
into the town as if he had come for the sport of the 
thing ; he would go into a newspaper shop near and 
go over the sporting papers ; then, at the time when 
Father Gilmartin and Miss Casey would be making 
a start, he would stroll as far as Marcus's shop ; 
Father Gilmartin would then introduce him to Miss 
Casey ; Stephen would also be going to the railway 
station, and would get a lift on Father Gilmartin's 
car ; he would go as far as MuUingar with the party 
— thus Miss Casey and he would make acquaintance, 
informally and agreeably, and he would have ample 
time to talk over affairs with Miss Casey's male 
relations. It is agreeable to approach these things 



MY IRISH YEAR 189 

in curves. The man is foolish who attempts to reach 
ends by straight Knes, for the earth is a curve. Be- 
sides, with this plan he could arrange things himself 
without the help of Marcus O'DriscoU. ' Better 
do without that fellow,' thought young Geoghan ; 
' he'd never let me forget that I was under a com- 
pliment to him. He'd tell the town that it was he 
got the last hundred thrown in. By God, he'd want 
the first child christened Marcus. It will be a great 
surprise to O'DriscoU that I'm able to do things out 
of my own brain. But I wasn't across the Atlantic 
Ocean for nothing.' Young Geoghan spoke out of 
the fundamental ingratitude of humanity. In this 
mood of his we may note that spiritual defect which 
is, perhaps, the root of tragedy. 

" He went into the newspaper shop near, and took 
up a sporting paper. He stood reading the paper, 
his legs wide apart, and the lower ornaments were 
very conspicuous to those in the street, if there were 
any who cared to note them. He read one paper, 
left it down on the counter ; then he took up another 
sporting paper ; then he said to the girl : — 

" ' Do the priests here mind you stocking these 
papers ? ' 

" ' Not a bit,' the girl returned. 

" ' Do you think would Father Gilmartin mind this 
paper ? ' Stephen pursued. 

" ' I couldn't tell you,' said the girl frankly. 

" ' Did you hear that Father Gilmartin was to be 
in the town to-day ? ' 

" ' Well, no, I didn't. He didn't come yet, any- 
way,' said the girl. 

" ' I suppose you see everyone who comes in ? ' 



190 MY IRISH YEAR 



" Stephen sat and waited. After a while he began 
to doubt the girl's information as to Father Gilmartin. 
He began to feel certain that the party had arrived, 
and were now at Marcus O'DriscoU's. But everyone 
who came into the shop were unanimous in the 
opinion that Father Gilmartin wasn't in the town. 
The sands were running out. Stephen would soon 
have to call at O'DriscoU's, if he were to meet the 
party at all. He strolled out of the shop. Even now 
Stephen did not make a straight line. He reflected 
that it would not look well to make O'DriscoU's a 
secondary place of call. The best thing to do was 
to go a little way back, re-enter the town, and go 
straight to Marcus O'DriscoU's. Stephen turned his 
back to Marcus O'DriscoU's. As he came to the 
country road he saw coming towards him the man 
himself. Marcus shook hands with Stephen. He 
gave him a pressure long and silent. The hand- 
shake said : ' My poor fellow ! ' Audibly Marcus 
said : — 

" ' Always bring a stick with you when you're 
walking. And a stick is especially needed along these 
roads. You're always going up a hill. A stick 
helps you along more than you'd be inclined to think. 
Besides, a stick is a comfort when you're by yourself, 
or on a dark night. It's company ; it's like having 
a dog with you. In my own part of the country 
no one would go anywhere without a stick ; but you 
can get a good class of a stick in the south of Ireland. 
I never saw an American stick that I would care to 
carry. Maybe you have no other sticks except 
American sticks.' 



MY IRISH YEAR 191 

" Stephen said that he had brought a cane-stick 
back with him. 

" ' They're no good,' said Marcus. ' John's James 
brought one of them back to me, but I never used it. 
I'll send it over to you some day. It has a silver- 
mount that is nice enough. But the stick you'd 
cut yourself is the sweetest stick you could carry. 
Sit down, now, and I'll give you the signs and tokens 
of a good stick.' 

" They sat down on the ditch, Stephen yielding 
himself with a prayer that Marcus would soon reach 
the limit of his disinterestedness. They would soon 
have to be going to Marcus's house. If there were 
any for the Dublin train a start would soon have 
to be made. 

" ' I beheve,' said Marcus, ' that every man ought 
to cut his own stick. It will come better to his hand 
afterwards. Now, if you are going to cut a stick 
about this place, there are only three kinds of timber 
that you need take into account, and I'U tell you 
about them now. The hazel makes a satisfactory 
stick ; it's light, and you can cut one with a middling 
good knife. I heard of a man who cut an ash-plant 
— cut it, mind you. Always pull an ash-plant. 
Take one about four feet high and pull it up from the 
roots. If the root does not suit you, pull another. 
Ash-plants are as plenty here as stones on the road. 
But the best stick to have is the blackthorn ; it's 
good at the fair, and it's good on the road. I brought 
a fine blackthorn with me from the south of Ireland ; 
but it's the hardest thing in the world to keep a good 
stick. Blackthorns grow straight up in certain 
places. Pick one out that's well furnished with 



(,(. c 



192 MY IRISH YEAR 

thorns. Thorns arc the sign oi' a good stick. Take 
a little saw with you to cut it. I doubt if you'd 
have a knife that would cut a blackthorn.' 

I'll remember that,' Stephen said, and he rose. 
Wait a while,' said Marcus. 'Be careful to 
cut the stick to your own height. A stick from three 
feel; nine to four feet or four feet and half an inch 
would just suit you.' 

" ' Let us go back to the shop,' said Stephen. 

" Marcus arose. ' Another thing about sticks,' he 
continued, ' when you get your stick bend it to a 
handle. Put a crook on it. A crook gives you a 
nice handling on a stick.' 

" It was at this moment that a car dashed up. 
There was a priest and a young lady on the car. 
For a moment Stephen's heart stood still. But the 
priest was not Father (iihnartin. The car passed, 
Marcus O'Driscoll making a salute, grave and subdued. 
' 'Pon my word,' said Stephen, ' [ tliought I was 
going to see Father Gilmartin.' 

He'd have come in only for the Parish Confer- 
ence,' said Marcus. 'Isn't it queer to think that 
you might be living ten years next to Martin Fallon, 
and he'd never give you an advice about a stick.' 

Stop,' said Stephen, ' who are them gone by 
on the car ? ' 

Father Casey and Miss Casey, to be sure,' said 
Marcus. 

" ' And why didn't you bring me to the shop ? ' 
And didn't I see you coming from the shop, 
man ? ' 

" ' I wasn't in the shop at all,' said Stephen. 

" ' Is that the sort of a fellow you are ? ' said 



MY IRISH YEAR 193 

Marcus O'Driscoll. ' There you were, mooning about, 
and anyone would have thouglit that something 
had come between you and the girl.' 

" ' And you kept me here blathering about sticks.' 

" ' Blathering about sticks ! Didn't I talk to you 
the way I'd talk to any young man that I'd sec 
walking out by himself without a stick ? ' 

" ' It's the like of you that has this country the 
way it is,' said Stephen, and he turned on his heel. 
Marcus O'Driscoll stood for a moment looking after 
him. Then he walked down the street slowly. He 
stood before his shop door. 

" ' He's like the rest,' he said ; ' they're all the 
same : all trick-o'-the-loops and three-card men. 
They're deserving of nothing but Castle government, 
and may there long be a Castle to rule over them.' 

" Marcus was magnanimous still. There was 
nothing personal in liis resentment." 



XII 

The town consists of a single street, short enough 
to let you distinguish your friends at the other end. 
It is market-day, but there is no great bustle in the 
town. Two or three Constabulary men are lounging 
in front of the barracks. The notice-board displays 
a staring proclamation, signed by the Vizier — no, the 
Viceroy. Under the Viceregal signature are names 
that seem ridiculous beneath the puissance of the 
poster. These obscure names represent the Executive 
in Ireland. 



194 MY IRISH YEAR 

At the butt of the street a dealer is hagghng with 
a girl who has brought young poultry to the market. 
" This girl was reared in a bog ; you'd know that by 
the way she holds out for her bargain," he says. " The 
old hags are laughing at her." " I won't take what 
you offer, anyway." " You'll be sorry, then. I know 
a girl the picture of you. She refused a good-looking 
man worth thousands, and now she lies by herself 
and the bloom has gone off her." The girl is not to 
be confused by this exuberance of language, and she 
remains dogged. " The man that gets you won't 
have much comfort ; you'll find that he'll go out and 
sleep in the hayrick." Then an old woman intervenes. 
" Take nine shillings, a vourneen deelish (my little 
loved one)," she says, " and you'll have luck." The 
girl admits that there is no harm in splitting the 
difference. The bystanders arrange the treaty, an(^ 
the dealer and the girl shake hands. When it is all 
over the man wipes his brow and makes a speech, 
that is full of a happy incongruity. " You'd need the 
brain of an elephant in this place. You'd want to be 
like Jumbo in the Zoological Gardens to be able for 
the women of Leitrim." 

We go into an eating-house frequented by the country 
people. The walls are crowded with cheap colour 
prints ; a view of Venice is followed by a Siberian 
hunting scene, then comes the British Child and Dog 
picture, the State trial of Daniel O'Connell, a sacred 
picture, Burns' Farewell to Highland Mary, a brewery 
horse, flowers and fruit, a harvest scene advertising 
an American plough. In a place such as this the food 
is highly priced and the cooking is lamentable. We 
get mutton and vegetables, bread and tea. The 



MY IRISH YEAR 195 

woman of the house comes and discourses to me. 
She had been in America for years, and she insists 
that America is the greatest country in the world. 
A farmer enters and seats himself opposite. He has 
lost the use of his right hand ; the front of his head 
is bald, with veins across it, and he has frightened 
eyes. He eats some of his dinner, and then looks 
across the table. " This is mutton," he says. He 
stares at the plate stupefied ; it is as though he has 
broken some pledge. Were his family hanged for 
sheep-stealing, I wonder. " I thought it was beef, and 
it turns out to be mutton," he says. He sighs, and 
goes on with his dinner. " It's a long time since you 
were here, Mr Murphy," our hostess remarks, uncon- 
scious of his mysterious struggles. Mr Murphy 
explains that he comes into her house every time he 
is in the town, but it is a long time since he was at 
the market. " And how are you, Mr Murphy ? " 
Mr Murphy sighs, and looks at her with pathos in his 
good brown eyes. " I'm very much reduced," he 
says. " Well you're not reduced in flesh, no matter 
how you may be reduced in spirits." Mr Murphy 
holds to the word. " I took a couple of glasses of 
spirits, and that ought to have raised me up," he says. 
" Maybe it did the opposite ? " "Ay — maybe," says 
Mr Murphy. It was as though the literalness of the 
common mind overcame one who had a desperate 
hope in the opium he had taken. 

It is " law day " in the town, and the people who 
come to the table have much to say about a case 
that is being tried. It is the case of a " grabber " 
who had shot at a young man. A " grabber " and 
an " emergency-man " are objects of aversion in an 



196 MY IRISH YEAR 

agrarian community. A " grabber " is the man who 
takes a farm over the heads of those who, in rural 
opinion, have the best right to the property, and an 
" emergency-man " is the one put in charge of the 
farm of an evicted person until opposition is worn 
down. Such people are a menace to rural security, 
they share in the infamy of the informer, and the acts 
of the "grabber " and the " emergency-man " are 
remembered to three generations. 

The town is across the Cavan border, and the people 
take Connacht for their province. They like to give 
themselves a name for passion and violence. The 
Cavan people pay a tribute to the friendliness of 
Leitrim, but hold that the people across the border 
have something barbaric in them. " We're very 
rough," the Leitrim people say in a way that makes 
a claim for virility. Coming into the town a Cavan 
man told us a story illustrating his conception of 
the Leitrim character. Up in the mountains there 
a man committed a murder. The police were baffled. 
Police were drafted there until they were as thick as 
grass in an acre of meadow. But were the rough and 
virile people intimidated ? No, the outlaw was 
sheltered and fed. He went to the races in spite of 
the fact that five hundred pohce were waiting for 
him there ! He stood looking over a fence, and no 
one dared put a hand on him ! As I went through 
the town I overheard a conversation about a man 
who had smashed a drum. " It's a wonder you let 
go with him," says one. The other, a handsome 
youth, rephes in a voice as soft as a meadow stream, 
" Sure, we butchered him on the road, but what good 
was that to us ? If he had to crooken a lip to one of 



MY IRISH YEAR 197 

us we'd have pulled him to pieces." " We left him 
there in his gores of blood." This violence is purely 
ideal. I knew the man who had smashed the drum. 
He came home without a scratch. 

In the middle of the street there are three men 
standing apart. They are sullen-looking fellows. I 
ask a shopkeeper who they are. " Two grabbers and 
an emergency-man. They are in the town about a 
case that is on to-day." " And are they not afraid of 
the town ? " " They needn't be afraid ; no one will 
touch them." " They are boycotted ? " "They won't 
get bit nor sup in the town." " And if one of them 
comes in and asks to buy this straw hat, what will 
you do ? " " I'll tell him I wouldn't give it to him 
for a sovereign." It should be remembered that the 
boycott can only be effective when public opinion 
knows itself outraged. The grabbers and the 
emergency-man make a move. No one lifts eyes to 
them ; no countenance is given to them. Gripping 
their ash-plants the three go down the street. 



XIII 

The camels went through Clooney with an austere 
aloofness ; their sad and proud heads were lifted 
high, and they looked as if they had sight of the 
Deserts beyond. But the elephant hated Clooney. 
His toes were whitened, and a big star was marked 
out on his forehead. No one had put on him a sign 
to show that the cup of his rage was full. But that 
was shown in his eyes, that were little and very old 



198 MY IRISH YEAR 

and full of malignity. He shambled on, swinging his 
head from side to side. Not in any order, but as it 
pleased, the procession went through the town. At 
the head of the street you saw a bunch of cavaliers 
in blue and yellow and green. There was a great 
white horse with a white-clad rider ; then a golden 
chariot with silver dragons carved upon it. The 
camels had their Arab, and the elephant had his 
Indian. A black and bucking broncho was bestridden 
by an iron-handed rider of the Wild West. But who 
could make words stand for a circus procession ? It 
might be shown in pictures by an artist possessed of 
the light and the colour of Spain. A girl in blue and 
silver, mounted on a rhythmically-pacing steed, rode 
proudly on. Silver scales were woven into the body 
of her dress, and silver spangled the wide blue of her 
skirt. Her forehead was pale, and ringlets of gold 
fell to her waist. On she rode, holding the long 
white reins loosely in her hands. 

The fair-green was crowded with unusual cattle. 
Instead of burly bullocks and unsophisticated sheep 
there were statuesque steeds and pigmy ponies. The 
horses on the green were really less familiar than the 
lions that gazed steadily out of the bars of their cage. 
" One hundred and sixty horses," said the poster ; 
they were all there. Monumental horses, whiter than 
white-wash, with flowing manes and tails, were having 
their hooves whitened. Ponies, stranger than the 
pigmies of Africa, or the dwarfs of a medieval court, 
stood in a herd. Piebalds roamed about. Undistin- 
guished cart-horses extended the equine area. " Four 
lions, two camels, eight cockatoos, an elephant, and 



MY IRISH YEAR 199 

an eagle." The eagle was really a vulture. In the 
cage next the lions' den the vulture sat biding his 
time. The elephant looked his hatred of Clooney ; 
but in the vulture's unwavering eyes there was a 
hatred more abysmal. He had followed the banners 
of Ghengis Khan, and now he sat between dispirited 
lions and a sullen slave of an elephant. Cockatoos 
played low comedy in the cage next his. These 
creatures surpassed the showman's invention. They 
were whiter than the whiteness of his monumental 
horses, and more red than the redness of his rider's 
underskirts ; they were graver than clowns off duty, 
and more sprightly than clowns in the ring. They 
revealed the fact that the showman works alongside 
nature. If the circus had not been foreseen, why 
would such creatures have been invented ? They 
looked as old and as stale as human artifice, and as 
fresh as our interest in clowns and tumblers ; our 
delight in the colour that is whiter than white and 
greener than green. 

The great tent baffled the sun ; the earth had been 
freshly turned, and a smell of the sod prevailed above 
the smell of the sawdust. Horses circled the ring in 
a gallop that kept up with the gallop of our pulses. 
The acrobats rested lightly on their trapezes, or 
suddenly made a swing the accomplice of their flight. 
Marvels happened to the continuous excitement of 
the music. The pachyderm led off the performing 
horse, and then a feat of jugghng and athletics was 
performed before us. A man suspended on his back 
tossed logs with his feet and made them spin in the 
air. The music infected the elephant and the horses. 



200 MY. IRISH YEAR 

the riders and the acrobats. But just outside the 
arena a woman worked a sewing-machine steadily. 
She did not Hft her eyes to see the girl who circled 
the ring, throwing herself into a sitting posture, or 
raising herself erect on the horse's back. This damsel 
incarnated the music of the circus. Energy and 
abandonment filled out the lines of her figure. Round 
and round she galloped, round and round again — 
motion, energy, the perfectly incarnated will. The 
clown grabbed at the galloping horse. He succeeded 
in holding on. With the wonderful luck of the fool 
he kept his seat on the horse. Then another horse 
and rider raced them neck and neck ; then another, 
and then another. With the pole of the circus for 
pivot the cavalcade swung round and round. 

Men, half-sailors, half-pugilists, had erected the 
great tent. There was an inner ring and an outer 
ring, and two tiers of seats. We sat near the outer 
ring and the sawdust, and the great ones of the town 
were on the high seats next the canvas. There you 
saw policemen with tenderly-reared families of little 
girls, and late-come bank clerks who commented freely 
on the performance. On the same tier of seats, but 
far away from bank clerks and policemen, were four 
creatures distinct from the rest of the audience. 
What were they ? They wore some regulation garb, 
and each showed some distinct abasement of the 
human type. Evidently, they were from the work- 
house, and defectives. We were now at the end of 
the performance, and the lions were about to be 
brought into the circus. The old apple woman 
hastened from the outer ring. In came the beasts. 



MY IRISH YEAR 201 

their cage drawn by two cart-horses. The Hons 
planted themselves at the four sides of the cage and 
looked at us steadily. The ring-master made an 
impressive announcement. " Herr Forrestier will 
now go through the performance that he has given 
before all the crowned heads of Europe. He will 
put his head into the lion's mouth. He does this at 
the imminent risk of his life." A lioness was induced 
to extend herself upward. The tamer forced her 
mouth open and ducked in his head. Then he got 
out of the cage, and, safe on the sawdust, received 
our ovation. The lions roared, but the life seemed 
to have gone out of the circus. We were aware of 
the old cart-horses with drooping heads, of the defec- 
tive men behind, of the lions, subject less to native 
rage than to neurasthenia. We went out of the 
tent and saw the proprietor before his van, sitting 
like a Pasha, a green parrot beside him. 



XIV 

Cavan Races 

An Old Ballad 

Cavan is a sporting place adapted for the game. 
Well improv'd for recreations with a smooth and 

level plain, 
To see each steed, with gallant speed, all prancing 

for the start. 
And inclined to face the winning post, and no one 

there is slack. 



202 MY IRISH YEAR 

The tents are in rotation in the middle of the course. 
With the best accommodation in the world can pro- 
duce. 
The landlady inside with her bottle and glass, 
And she multiplying the whiskey lest the topers 
should run short. 

It's there you'd see confectioners with sugar sticks 

and cakes, 
To accommodate the ladies and to molify their tastes ; 
The gingerbread and lozenges and spices of all sorts, 
And a big crubeen for threepence to be picking till 

you're home. 

It's there you'd see the muggers and they firing at 

their hoops, 
And the man with the long garter they call the trick- 

of-the-loup ; 
The thimble men so nimble that never acted wrong. 
And the splendid wheel of fortune that lately came 

from France. 

It's there you'd see the pipers and fiddlers in tune, 
And the dancers without falter that can crack and 

tip the floor. 
They'll call for liquor merrily, and pay before they go, 
And they'll treat and kiss the girls, and their mothers 

will not know. 

It's there you'd see the jockeys and they dressed in 

blue and green, 
And they mounted on their horses most commodious 

to be seen. 



MY IRISH YEAR 203 

When the bugle sounds for starting the people shout 

for joy, 
And they betting ten to one upon the horse that wins 

the prize. 

Now my pen is weary and I mean to end my song, 
Success attend the gentlemen the races first began ; 
Success attend each gallant steed that nimbly crossed 

the plain, 
May we live to see the races in Cavan once again. 



PART III 

THE WEST-SKETCHES 



Now coming on Spring tlie days will be growing, 
And after Saint Bride's Day, my saU I will throw, 
Since the thought has come to me, I fain would be going 
Till I stand in the middle of the County Mayo. 

The first of my days will be spent in Claremorris 

And in Balla down from it I'll have drinking and sport, 

To Kntimagh then I shall go on a visit. 

And there I can tell you a month wUl be short. 

I solemnly swear that the heart in me rises 
As the wind rises up and the mist breaks below 
When I think upon Carra and on Gallen down from it, 
The Bush of the Mile and the Plains of Mayo, 

KUleadean's my village, and every good's in it. 
There's raspberries, blackberries, and all kinds of fruit, 
And if Raftery stood in the midst of his people. 
Old age would go from him and he'd be in his youth." 

P. C. 
{From the Irish of Raftery's " County Mayo.") 



The vicinity of the town seems to be in the grip of 
an invading army. On outside cars and on bicycles, 
and armed with rifles of the latest pattern, the 
Constabulary patrol the country. There has been 
agrarian trouble in the district and cattle have been 
repeatedly driven off a ranch. 

The town is in a fertile plain ; it is at the end of a 
railway line, and has the trade of the villages in an 
area of forty miles. To-day business and repression 
are mixed. A few clumps of black cattle are in the 
street. Mountain ponies with flowing manes and 
tails, and eyes that are like the eyes of deer, roam 
about. The men have ash-plants in their hands : 
they go in twos and threes talking earnest Irish or 
English. Everywhere there are armed constabulary. 
In a room off a shop a reserve company are playing 
cards. One constable stands fully dressed. With 
his helmet, his wide purple lips and his weather- 
beaten face, he looks like a Roman veteran. Suddenly 
a squad marches down the street and the band that 
is with a popular gathering plays defiantly. 

In from the empty country come carts loaded 
with black turf. They pass others that go out piled 
with bags of flour. If we follow the outgoing carts 
we will go into the area of agrarian disturbance. 
I walk with two men and one of them has just been 
released from the gaol of the town. 



207 



208 MY IRISH YEAR 

II 

Land Hunger 

One rarely saw Michael Heffernan apart from his 
son Hugh. Hugh was less of a personality than his 
father, but in a crowd of Connacht people he was 
noticeable for his quiet manner ; he always seemed 
a little withdrawn from the Hfe of the fair or the 
spree. You might describe Hugh HeSernan as a 
" soft young fellow." He did not look robust, and 
there was something of solicitude in the way that 
his father watched him. Michael HeJSernan was 
typical of his people. He had the peasant face, 
broad and shrewd, the deep-set, humorous eyes, 
and the resolute mouth. He had been away from the 
land for years. After the death of his wife, Michael 
went to England, and he had worked in a dockyard 
amongst aliens. He had come back to Connacht 
to mind the child, he said. The child had called him, 
surely, but the land had called him, too. The httle 
house on the wet hillside, the patch of land around, 
had drawn Michael Heffernan as the ship draws 
the sailor, as the barrack draws the soldier. Michael 
had nature for the land, as they say. I do not know 
what visionary faculty he possessed, but I venture 
to think that beyond the smoke of the shipping town, 
Michael Heffernan often saw the potatoes become 
green on the ridge and the oats patch turn from 
green to yellow. This man had no affinity with 
his companions nor liis English surroundings, and the 
money paid to him was only little coins. He wanted 





A MAN OF THE CONGESTED DISTRICTS, 
(From a photograph.) 



MY IRISH YEAR 209 

to see his labour grow into something ; become crop 
and harvest. And so he came back to the deep soil, 
to the smell of the earth, to the satisfaction of being 
over the sod. He came back to his farm, and his 
child. Tenderly he reared one, shrewdly he worked 
the other. Hugh had grown up ; he was now a 
young man of twenty-three, and father and son were 
inseparable. They hved together and alone. A 
neighbour woman milked the cow and made the cake 
for them. 

The Heffernans had only four acres of land ; they 
were pinched between a mountain and a grazing farm. 
On the day of his return Michael Heffernan walked 
through his own little holding and saw the rich land 
beyond, vacant except for cattle. From that day he 
hungered for more land. To have ample land, and 
with the land cattle and horses. No man had a 
better eye for a beast, no man had a better hand on 
a horse. He would walk up and down the fair 
watching the cattle and the horses and going over 
their points. His own holding could only support a 
cow, a calf, an ass, and some sheep. We realise 
the pinch of small holdings when we consider what 
the lack of a horse meant to the Heffernans. It meant 
that the tillage of the farm must be done with the 
spade, and this is an enormous tax in labour. Many's 
the time Michael Heffernan let his spade Ue while 
he watched the horses of the rich farmer plough up 
the ridge of the hillside. Isn't it well for them who 
can yoke horses to their plough ! The horses go 
before you, turning up the earth ; so much done, so 
Httle labour on yourself. The wide space of ground, 
the horses, the plough, had an imaginative value 



210 MY IRISH YEAR 

for Michael Heffernan. To this child of the earth 
to plough with horses was poetry and ritual. 

Michael had often to compare Hugh's living with 
the hving enjoyed by the young men working in the 
dockyards of England. He would see Hugh going 
out in the morning without a rasher to his breakfast 
and without an egg three days in the week. Hugh 
was ill one time and Michael had to ask milk from a 
neighbour: Coming back, he looked across the grass 
lands adjoining his holding. He saw the calves 
sucking milk from the cows. Michael Heffernan 
was filled with the indignation of the Prophets of the 
Old Testament. It was as if you had seen a riotous 
youth trampling a loaf in the gutter. Christians 
were without the milk of a cow ! 

The sight entered Michael Heffernan's heart. It 
went towards making him the prophet of an agrarian 
agitation. Soon after this there was a meeting in 
the Chapel yard — a lecturer had come to tell the 
people of a new method of spraying potatoes. Some 
of the speakers referred to the possibility of a certain 
Land Department taldng over Lord Clanwilliam's 
estate and redistributing the land amongst those 
whose holdings were not up to the economic standard 
of twenty acres. Michael Heffernan was moved to 
speak. He spoke with the power of a man who 
feels deeply. Let them divide the land and give 
poor people a chance to live. They were worn out 
working on their little farms. They were without 
proper food ; in bad seasons they were without the 
turf for the fire. Let them make division of the land, 
and they would have the prayers of the poor people — 
ay, and the blessing of God, too, who never intended 



MY IRISH YEAR 211 

that people should have such a poor way of living. 
Michael Heffernan's speech found a vigorous response. 
As a consequence of the feeling aroused, pressure was 
brought on the Land Department to open negotia- 
tions with Lord Clanwilham. One Sunday the priest 
announced from the altar that negotiations were 
proceeding. Michael Heffernan was profoundly 
moved. When he knelt down again he said a prayer 
for success and for God's guidance. 

The negotiations bore no fruit for the tenants. 
A grazier from the town offered a good rent for the 
grass and the land that adjoined. Michael Hefier- 
nan's holding was let on the eleven months' system. 
Michael was in the town when the news became 
known. He hurried back. Standing on the ditch, 
he saw the stock put on the farm. There were only 
fifty head of cattle brought that evening, and a few 
sheep and lambs. He went to the house, and Hugh 
and himself sat over the fire for a long time that 
night. They rested themselves for a while on the 
bed, and at daylight they went out. They rounded 
up the sheep and cattle. Early in the morning they 
were driving the flocks and herds along the road 
back to the town, five miles away. Men turned back 
from their journey and joined them. Early workers 
in the field threw down the spade and went with them. 
Young men came out of the houses and joined the 
troop. It was a good-humoured, if excited, crowd. 
Hugh Heffernan was wild with excitement. He 
shouted and sang songs. Michael went on the march 
steadily and seriously. He drove Ireton's cattle 
as though he had been paid for it. He could not but 
be attentive to cattle. He had been reared amongst 



212 MY IRISH YEAR 

these friendly beasts, and he could no more injure 
a cow than he could pass by on the road and see a 
cow tramphng down a field of oats. He picked up 
a lamb and carried it in his arms. With the great, 
lumbering beasts before them the people came into 
the town. They brought the cattle up to the grazier's 
house, and they soon had Mr Ireton amongst them. 
In a few words Michael Heffernan told the grazier 
that the peasants would not allow cattle on that 
part of Lord Clanwilliam's estate. The estate must 
be broken up and divided amongst the people who 
wanted land. 

Next day the original stock and additions were 
put back on the grass farm. The grazier had invested 
his money, and was not going to be at any loss. 
Besides, a political party urged him to make a fight 
and promised him a backing. John Ireton was a 
man of the Planter breed. By tradition and con- 
nection he belonged to the landlord regime. His 
connections were amongst bailiffs and agents, and 
the position and incomes of this class were en- 
dangered by land transfer. John Ireton was kindly 
to his neighbours, but he sincerely distrusted the 
Celtic peasantry. Between him and them there 
was a racial antipathy not to be overcome. It was 
class against class — ay, appetite against appetite. 
John Ireton stood up for his own appetite and his 
own class. 

It was to the interest of the people to make graz- 
ing profitless ; therefore, though extra police were 
brought into the district, the cattle were driven again. 
This time the cattle would not be brought to the 
grazier's yard ; they would be scattered to the four 



MY IRISH YEAR 213 

corners of the county. Michael Heffernan told his 
son to remain at home. Serious and determined 
himself, he joined the assembly. He drove off a 
certain number of cattle towards the hills. That 
day the people came into conflict with the police, and 
Michael Heffernan was arrested on a charge of inflict- 
ing injury on Mr Ireton's cattle. He was asked to 
find bail. Michael Heffernan felt very seriously 
about the cause. He knew the land was not to be 
won lightly nor without sacrifice. He refused to find 
bail and he went to jail for a month. Meantime the 
agrarian trouble came to a settlement. Mr Ireton 
surrendered the farm to Lord Clanwilliam, and the 
landlord reopened negotiations with the Land Depart- 
ment. Michael Heffernan came out of prison, crowds 
cheering, victory assured. He walked about un- 
steadily. Hugh came to him, and they left the 
town and the crowds. There was a darkness on 
Michael's spirit, the shadow of disgrace and humilia- 
tion. He let Hugh talk, saying a few vague words 
himself now and again. The familiar roads and the 
sight of growing things brought some restoration. 

" Hugh, a chara," said Michael out of a silence, 
" you will have a good place for yourself some day." 

" The sergeant told me that ten acres would be 
added to our holding," Hugh said. 

" Now, isn't that better .than an American legacy ? " 
said Michael. He knew that it was better than ten 
legacies ; an American legacy never brought luck to 
anyone. But Michael had not begun to think as yet. 
He could only find formal expressions. " We can 
keep a horse now," he went on. 

" If we had a horse I could earn good money 



214 MY IRISH YEAR 

many's the day in the week, drawing goods from 
the town." 

" We will have a beast or a couple of beasts," 
Michael replied. Father and son walked on in silence. 
Then Michael said, after a space : 

" I saw yon with a young woman one Sunday 
evening, and she was a stranger to me." 

" She's by the name of Coyne," Hugh said briefly 
and formally. 

" Maybe she'd be a daughter to Bartley Coyne ? " 
Michael went on. 

" She is. She is Bedellia Cojne, and she's back 
from America a while now," Hugh replied. 

" Ay, Bridget Coyne," said Michael, giving her her 
pre-American name. " She was a good while in 
America, and all her people had the name of being 
saving." 

" She has earned her fortune like many's the girl," 
said Hugh. There was silence between the two men 
for a while. Then Michael said : 

" I don't care for Yankees, no matter for their 
fortunes. They're no good about a farmer's house." 

" Bedellia Coyne is a good girl," Hugh said, rather 
warmly. " She's a great favourite with me. And 
she has a wish for me, too. I know that." 

" Please yourself, my son," said Michael. " I'm 
only thinking about your prosperity. My life 
wouldn't be any good to me unless I saw you pros- 
perous from this out. Stay on the land for a while 
and do nothing until we settle down." 

That evening Michael Heffernan made a journey 
over to Coyne's and received something of a state 
welcome from Bartley and his woman. He saw 



MY IRISH YEAR 215 

Bedellia, and approved of her, although he would have 
preferred a country girl for his son. Bedellia had 
distinction in dress and appearance. She was fair, 
and, like Irish girls of that type who have been for 
some years in America, her hair and her eyes were 
rather faded. BedelUa was in no hurry back to the 
States. She had got fond of Hugh Heffernan, the 
quiet, mannerly, young fellow, and she had made up 
her mind to marry him. 

The young men in the district had attained a certain 
prosperity. There was talk of marriages and of the 
building of new houses. Hugh Heffernan and BedelHa 
Coyne were one of the four couples that got married 
that summer. 



Ill 

A district is said to be congested when the land 
available is not sufficient in area nor productive 
enough in quality to provide economic holdings for 
the families settled in the district. What area con- 
stitutes an economic holding in Ireland ? According 
to the leaflet issued by the Department of Agriculture 
and Technical Instruction, ^ the area should not be 
less than fifty acres. The Department's expert notes 
that an economic holding should be such as to 
enable a farmer to bring up his family in a spirit of 
independence, to supply them with a sufficient amount 
of wholesome food and serviceable clothing ; to 
provide them with a fair general education ; to ap- 
prentice one or more children to a business or a trade ; 
to find constant employment for liimself and the son 

Leaflet No. 34— "The Revival of Tillage in Ireland." 



216 MY IRISH YEAR 

who is to succeed him, as well as to occupy profitably 
the spare time of other members of the family until 
they leave the home, and finally, to save enough to 
prevent his being a burden on the son who succeeds 
him. The minimum size of the holding that will 
meet these conditions is determined by which instru- 
ment of tillage can be used with economy — the spade 
or the plough. Now the spade can only be used 
economically under a system of intensive cultivation, 
and this style of culture is impossible in Ireland 
except in a few favoured localities. Under existing 
conditions Irish farmers have to make use of a 
system that aims at the production of roots, potatoes, 
corn, hay, and grass, to be sold or converted into beef, 
mutton, pork, butter, eggs and poultry. They must 
use, not the spade but the plough. The efficient work- 
ing of the plough, says the Department's expert, 
necessitates the use of two horses : a holding, there- 
fore, to be economic, should be of a size sufficient, to 
keep two horses at work — about fifty statute acres 
of average quality, exclusive of bog and land that 
cannot be cultivated or reclaimed. There are 590,000 
holdings in Ireland. Out of these 350,000 (exclusive 
of 75,000 not exceeding an acre) do not exceed thirty 
statute acres in area. In the Congested Districts, the 
holdings are generally from four to six acres. The 
parts of Ireland said to be congested are now under 
the administration of the Congested Districts Board. 
The immediate policy of the Board is to secure the 
productive lands in the vicinity of the uneconomic 
holdings and divide them amongst the tenants that 
are pinched. 



MY IRISH YEAR 217 

IV 

The new settlers are destitute of capital, stock and 
implements, and they are often without the training 
and discipline necessary for larger agriculture. Under 
these circumstances the Congested Districts Board 
has often to adopt an attitude of paternalism towards 
them. This paternalism must often be injurious to 
the enterprise of the new settlers. Voluntary 
co-operation seems to offer the best solution of the 
material and moral problems involved in the new 
settlement — co-operation applied to rural credit, to 
butter-production, to cottage industries and perhaps 
to grazing. 

V 

The district around Foxford looks like a very 
Thebaid. Here Nature seems to have tried every 
form of infertility possible in a moist climate. There 
are bogs in every part of Ireland, but here the bogs 
run into barren hills. Elsewhere the hills are treeless 
and bare, but here they have a special desolation : 
they are mere ridges of sullen infertility not high 
enough to lift the mind. Everywhere there are rocks. 
Stones lie in the fields, and the fences of the little 
clearings are of stone. Where there is cultivation 
the ridges of black earth are interrupted by rocks. 
These patches of tillage add to the desolation of the 
country, for they give the impression of painful effort. 
Then there are stretches of water and water-logged 
fields. In the fields there is not a beast. But the 



218 MY IRISH YEAR 

human habitations are signs of hope on these bleak 
landscapes. They are out of harmony with the sur- 
rounding bog, but they are tidy, well-built and com- 
fortable. The houses are new : none of the old hovels 
are to be seen. These new cottages are the most 
conspicuous result of the Congested Districts Board's 
Administration. 



VI 

We have suggested that on these tiny holdings the 
plough cannot be used. All the labour must be done 
with the spade or the loy. As a consequence of this 
the owner of the little holding cannot take employ- 
ment as an agricultural labourer, for the tilled acre 
demands all his sweat. The land cannot support the 
people, and the income derived from the cottage 
industries that the Board has set up is hardly 
perceptible. Men and women go as agricultural 
labourers to England and Scotland at certain seasons, 
and the earnings of these migratory labourers go to 
make up the living of the families in the Congested 
Districts. But the biggest contribution to the income 
of the families comes from America. Into eight poor 
districts, thousands of pounds are sent every year — 
mainly the earnings of girls in domestic service. 
With the contribution received, each household pays 
the shop debts and buys the year's stock — a few 
sheep and a cow perhaps. Naturally the emigration 
from these districts is large. Out of a family of six 
four go to America. 



MY IRISH YEAR 219 



VII 



In Connemara one cannot help but notice the 
industry of the men and women, but of the women 
especially. The people are constant workers in their 
fields and in their houses. They continue cottage 
industries which have died out in other parts of 
Ireland. They make beautiful lace. Emigration 
has reduced the people in numbers, but as yet it has 
caused no visible deterioration in the type. The 
people are noticeably handsome and remarkably in- 
telligent, and they have a vitality that lets them work 
all day and dance half the night. Emigration is not 
such a menace to racial fitness as the late and ill- 
assorted marriages which are common in more pros- 
perous parts of the country. About Connemara, the 
people, having nothing to lose, marry young — the 
women under twenty generally. The Connacht 
woman is a fine type and must impress the observer. 



VIII 

There are few books of which it may be said that 
in them is the secret of a race. Amongst such books 
is " The Love-Songs of Connacht," a volume in Dr 
Douglas Hyde's collection " The Songs of Connacht." 
" On the verge of inarticulateness " Mr W. B. Yeats 
said of some of these songs. Made by peasant men 
and women, the songs have an indeliberate simphcity 
that we can never find in cultured poetry. They have 



220 MY IRISH YEAR 

the simplicity of nature, but they have also the 
subtlety of passion. A girl says : — 

" A hundred farewells to last night; 
It's my grief that to-night was not first." 

And there is another poem that gives a passion the 
barest, the least sophisticated expression. It is 
called " The Brow of the Red Mountain." A girl 
speaks : — 

" I am sitting up, 
Since the moon rose last night, 
And putting down a fire 
And ever kindling it diligently ; 
The people of the house are lying down, 
And I am by myself ; 
The cocks are crowing, 
And the land is asleep but me. 
That I may never leave the world 
Till I loose from me the ill-luck. 
Till I have cows and sheep, 
And my one desire of a boy. 
I would not think the night long. 
That I would be stretched by his smooth white breast, 
And sure I would allow the race of Eve after that 
To say their choice thing of me. . . . The curse of the Son of God 
Upon that one who took from me my love, 
And left me by myself 
Every single long night in misery. 
And, yoimg boy, 

I am no material for mockery for you ; 
You have nothuig to say 

Except that I am without dowry. You are not my love 
And my destruction if I am sorry for it ; 
And if I am without cattle I am able to lie alone. " 

And here is an exquisite poem which Dr Hyde took 
down from the mouth of an old woman who Hved in a 



MY IRISH YEAR 221 

hut in the middle of a Roscommon bog. Dr Hyde's 
EngHsh rendering of the GaeHc is always admirable. 
His knowledge of the dialect used by EngHsh-speaking 
peasants enables him to give a translation that is 
close to idiomatic. And he is an ingenious metrical 
artist. But inevitably this translation lacks the 
exquisite variety of sound that is in the original :— 

" My grief on the sea, 

How the waves of it roll ! 
They come between me 
And the love of my soul ! 

Abandoned, forsaken 

To trouble and care — 
Will the sea never waken. 

Relief from despair. 

, My grief and my trouble — 

Would that he and I were 
In the province of Leinster 
Or the County of Clare. 

Were I and my darling — 

heart-bitter wound — 
On board of a ship 

For America bound. 

On a green bed of rushes 

All last night I lay, 
And I flung it abroad 

With the heat of the day. 

And my love came behind me — 

He came from the south ; 
His breast to my bosom, 

His mouth to my mouth." 

West of the Shannon one can still find Uf e as primi- 
tive as at the beginning of social organisation. The 
people have been hindered from producing a material 



222 MY IRISH YEAR 

civilisation, but they are free of their emotion and 
their imagination. The hard conditions of Connacht 
life have helped the Connacht women to development 
and personaHty. The size of the holding does not 
permit the man to develop his constructive and 
organising faculty. The woman becomes the per- 
sonaUty amongst the Connacht peasantry, and the 
civihsation is of her creating. It is the civilisation 
of the hearth. One cannot fail to note the number 
of words for " child " in constant use ; there is a word 
for the child in the cradle, the child creeping on the 
floor, the child going to school, the growing child — 
" naoidhean," " lanabh," " malrach," " piaste," — 
words as soft and as intimate as a caress. The 
tragedies of Connacht life come closest to the woman. 
As a child she sees the sister who reared her leave 
home for America ; as a wife she Uves alone while her 
husband works abroad, and often her child is born 
while its father is labouring the fields of England or 
Scotland. As a mother she sees her rearing go from 
her as they grow up. In the book of love-songs we 
find that in the world of passion the woman is 
supreme. Two songs placed at the beginning of the 
collection make us reaHse the difference between the 
man's way of loving and the woman's way of loving. 
This is from the man's song : — 

" How well for the birds in all weather ; 

They rise up on high in the air, 
And then sleep upon one bough together, 

Without sorrow, or trouble, or care ; 
But so it is not in this world 

With myself and my thousand-times fair, 
Far away, far apart from each other, 

Each day rises barren and bare." 



MY IRISH YEAR 

Contrast this charming sentiment with the truth 
and power of the woman's song : — 

" My heart is bruised and broken 
Like the ice-flag on the top of the water, 
As it were a cluster of nuts after their breaking, 
Or a young maiden after her marrying. 

I denounce love, woe for her who gave it 
To the son of yon woman, who never understood it. 
My heart in my middle, sure he has left it black, 
And I do not see him in the street nor in any place." 

The contriast between the man's way of loving and 
the woman's way of loving goes through the whole 
collection. Here is the prose of a man's song. It 
has exquisite music in Irish : — 

In Ballinahinch, in the West, my love is for a year ; she is 
more exquisite than the sun of autumn, and sure honey grows 
after her on the track of her foot on the mountain, no matter 
how cold the time after November-day. If I were to get my 
desire I would take her in my net, and I would put away from 
me this grief and trouble. But for the counsel of all ever born, 
I shall only marry my desire ; she is the Moorneen of the fair 
hair. 

We have charming desire beside vehement passion 
when we put beside this a woman's song : — 

And farewell henceforth to yon town westward among^ the 
trees ; it is there that I am drawn early and late. Many is the 
wet, dirty morass and crooked road going between me and the 
town where my treasure is. ... Paddy, are you sorry that 
I am ill, and do you think bad of it that I am going to the church- 
yard ? 

Paddy of the bound black hair it is your mouth that is 
sweet, and until I go under the ground my affection will be on 
you for your converse with me. . . . And dear Virgin what 
shall I do if you go from me ? I have no knowledge of your 



224 MY IRISH YEAR 

house, your haggard, or your stacks. Ah, faithful was the 
counsel that my people gave me not to elope with you, for you 
had the hundred twists in your heart and the thousand tricks. 

These poems have natural subtlety, some of them^ 
have intellectual subtlety also. Some of the peasant 
poems show exquisite perception. In one of them 
the lover speaks of his sweetheart as having " the 
little hands of Mary " (the virgin), and he says, 
" The sun loses its heat when my swan goes abroad, 
and the moon makes obeisance to her." And in 
another peasant poem there is the phrase " Her 
rose-ember mouth." 

I cannot help contrasting " The Love Songs of 
Connacht " with a collection of Roumanian folk- 
poetry. Ours is sj-ighter in volume, but when we 
have added to the love songs our religious songs, 
our keens or lamentations for the dead, our political 
songs and our drinking songs, we will be able to show 
a collection of folk-poetry as bulky as " the Bard of 
theDimbovitza." In the poetry of the two countries 
the external life presented offers the first contrast. 
The people move in gold, in sunshine, in the 
Roumanian songs, and there are glowing harvests 
and blossoming fruit trees. Girls dance under acacia 
trees. Outside on the walls of the houses flowers 
are painted. The hero of a girl's dream rides by and 
the lute-player comes to the door. Grief itself 
moves amongst gracious things. And this world 
is sufficient. There is no burthen of an invisible 
world. Ghosts come but they are from the grave 
only. The grave is a pitiful fact, but meantime 
the living are free, brave and joyous. Not-being 
to these people is the tragic idea. " Barren," " No 



MY IRISH YEAR 225 

Son," " Stillborn," is the most piercing of their 
songs. 

Different indeed is the world of the Connacht song. 
Here external life is bare, and he who would put 
beauty around his love must bring it from afar. 
" The cuckoo cries in the winter over the village 
where she is Hving." " Honey grows behind the 
track of her feet on the mountain, and it seven weeks 
after November day." External life is harsh. " Many 
is the wet dirty morass and crooked road going 
between me and the town where my treasure is." 
The most powerful expressions are in terms of this 
harshness as in the song where the girl says that her 
heart is bruised and broken like the ice-flag on the 
top of water, and as black as the coal that would be 
burnt in the forge. The invisible world is constantly 
obtruding. The makers of these songs have religion 
in the blood, and passion itself must speak the 
language of religion. 

" tJna, maiden, friend, and golden tooth ! 

little mouth that never uttered an injustice, 

1 had rather be beside her on a couch, ever kissing her, 
Than to be sitting in Heaven on the chair of the Trinity " — 

says the maker of one of the poems, but he is well 
aware of his blasphemy : — 

" fair tJna, it is you that set astray my senses ; 
Una it was you who went close in between me and God ; 
tlna, fragrant branch, twisted little curl of the ringlets, 
Was it not better for me to be without eyes than ever to have 
seen you." 

After the Roumanian songs with their agreeable 
and abundant life and their tinge of pantheism. 



226 MY IRISH YEAR 

the world of the Connacht songs seems primitive. 
And yet the love expressed in these songs is a subtle 
and complex emotion. There are many generations 
of refinement below the flowering of such a mood 
as this : — 

" Eingleted youth of my love, 

With thy locks bound loosely behind thee, 
You passed by the road above, 

But you never came in to find me ; 
Where were the harm for you. 

If you came for a little to see me ? 
Your kiss is a wakening dew, 

Were I ever so ill or so dreamy. 

I thought, my love ! you were so 

As the moon is, or sun, on the fountain, 
And I thought after that you were snow. 

The cold snow on the top of the mountain ; 
And I thought after that you were more 

Like God's lamp shining to find me, 
Or the bright star of knowledge before. 

And the star of knowledge behind me. 

You promised me high-heeled shoes, 

And satin and silk, my storeen. 
And to follow me, never to lose 

Though the ocean were round us roaring ; 
Like a bush in a gap in a wall 

I am left now lonely without thee. 
And this house I grow dead of, is all 

That I see around or about me." 

The Roumanian folk-songs have a quaUty that is 
not in the Gaehc — profound reflection. They have 
masculine power and masculine construction, while 
the Connacht songs have feminine intensity. The 



MY IRISH YEAR 227 

end of the Roumanian poem, " No Son," is full of 
grave consideration : — 

" Silent was she, for she knew not how to answer ; 
Silent were both our hearts, for they were empty. 
Then of all loneliness, and pain and sorrow, 
I felt myself the father — 

The son of the graves I felt myself, and the husband 
Of yon dumb woman, whose womb would be silent ever 
As were our hearts. 

Then, that we might forget we looked at the furrows 
Ail full of seed, and some shoots already were breaking 
Forth from the furrows, and said, ' We, we are born,' 
Nor did one of us ask the other ' wherever art thou looking,' 
We only looked at the growing seeds together." 

Under this I write twelve lines that are alive with a 
moment's intensity. I found them in a manuscript 
collection of Connacht songs. A man whose name 
is Bourke has been killed. Those who killed him, 
evidently, are his sisters' husbands. Bourke's wife 
asks the sisters to come to the table : — 

" Draw near to the table, ye that wear the cloaks ; 
Here ye have flesh, but it is not roast flesh, 
Nor boiled in pots, nor cooked for feasting. 
But my dear Bourke — och, och, after been slam. 

You, young woman, who are drinking the wine there, 

Let my sharp screeches pierce your heart. 

If I am wise I may get whatever is my lot, 

But you will never — och, och, och — get another brother ! 

young woman, don't you pity my sorrow ? 
My mourning over the bier of my spouse ? 
A lock of his hair is locked within my purse. 
And his offspring — och, och — hidden within me ! " 



MY IRISH YEAR 

IX 

The Death of the Rich Man 

It was a road as shelterless and bare as any road in 
Connacht. On one side there was a far- stretching 
bog, on the other side little fields, cold with tracts 
of water. You faced the Connacht hills, bleak and 
treeless, with little streams across them like threads 
of steel. There was a solitary figure on the road — 
a woman with bare feet and ragged clothes. She 
was bent, and used a stick ; but she carried herself 
swiftly, and had something of a challenge in her face. 
Her toothless mouth was tightly closed, her chin 
protruded, wisps of hair fell about her distrustful 
eyes. She was an isolated individual, and it would 
be hard to communicate the sensations and facts 
that made up her Hfe. Irish speakers would call 
the woman a " shuler." The word is literally the 
same as "" tramp," but it carries no anti- social sug- 
gestion. None of the lonely cabins about would 
refuse her hospitality ; she would get shelter for the 
night in any one of them, the sack of chaff beside the 
smouldering fire, the share in the household bit. 
But though she slept by their fires and ate their 
potatoes and salt, this woman was apart from them, 
and apart from all those who lived in houses, who 
tilled their fields, and reared up sons and daughters ; 
she had been moulded by unkind forces, the silence 
of the roads, the bitterness of the winds, the long 
hours of hunger. She moved swiftly along the 
shelterless road, muttering to herself, for the appetite 



MY IRISH YEAR 

was 'pMiing within her. There on her way was a 
certain village, but before going through it she would 
give herself a while of contentment. She took a 
short pipe out of her pocket and sought the sheltered 
side of a bush. Then she drew her feet under her 
clothes and sucked in the satisfaction of tobacco. 

You may be sure the shuler saw through the village, 
though her gaze was across the road. Midway on 
the village street there was a great house ; it was 
two stories above the cottages, and a storey higher 
than the other shops. It was set high above its 
neighbours, but to many its height represented effort, 
abiHty, discipline. It was the house of Michael 
Gilsenin, farmer, shopkeeper, local councillor. " Gil- 
senin, the Gombeen man," the shuler muttered, and 
she spat out. Now the phrase " Gombeen man " 
would signify a grasping peasant dealer, who squeezed 
riches out of the poverty of his class, and few people 
spoke of Michael Gilsenin as a Gombeen man ; but 
his townsmen and the peasants around would tell 
you that Michael Gilsenin had the open hand for the 
poor, and that he never denied them the bag of meal, 
nor the sack of seed-potatoes ; no, nor the few 
pounds that would bring a boy or girl the prosperity 
of America. To the woman on the ditch Michael 
Gilsenin was the very embodiment of worldly pros- 
perity. It was said — and the shuler exclaimed on 
Heaven at the thought — that Michael's two daughters 
would receive dowries of a thousand pounds each. 
Michael had furnished the new chapel at a cost of 
five hundred pounds ; he had bought recently a 
great stock of horses and cattle ; he had built sheds 
and stables behind liis shop. And Michael Gilsenin 



230 MY IRISH YEAR 

had created all his good fortune by his own effort. 
The shuler wondered what bad luck eternal Justice 
would send on his household to balance this pros- 
perity. And in her backward-reaching mind, the 
shuler could rake out only one thing to Michael's 
discredit. This was his treatment of Thady, his 
elder brother. It was Thady who owned the cabin 
and the farm on which the Gilsenins had begun their 
lives. Michael had reduced his grasping and slow- 
witted brother to subordination, and he had used 
liis brother's inheritance to forward himself. In for- 
warding himself Michael had forwarded the family, 
Thady included, and now, instead of Hfe in a cabin, 
Thady had a place in a great house. Michael was old 
now, the shuler mused, he was nearly as old as herself. 
It was well for those who would come after him. 
His daughters had dowries that made them the talk 
of Connacht, and his son would succeed to stock, 
farms, and shop. The shuler stretched out her neck 
and looked down the road and in to the village street. 
She saw the tall grey building, the house of stone 
with the slated roof and the many windows. And 
she saw a man hobbling out of the village. He had 
two sticks under him for he was bent with the pains. 
The man was Thady Gilsenin, Michael's brother. 

Thady Gilsenin was grudging and hard-fisted to 
the beggars, but he always stayed to have speech 
with them. His affinities were with these people 
of the roads. By his hardness and meanness, by his 
isolation and his ailments, he was kin to the shuler 
and her like. She quenched the pipe, hid it under 
her clothes, and waited for Thady Gilsenin. 



-^....s^T; ^,^- 



MY IRISH YEAR 231 

He stood before her, a grey figure leaning on two 
sticks. His hands were swollen with the pains, their 
joints were raised and shining. 

" Well, ma'am," said Thady, " you're round this 
way again, I see." 

" My coming won't be any loss to you, Thady 
Gilsenin," the shuler returned. 

Thady turned round and looked back at the big 
house. 

" And how is the decent man, your brother ? " 
asked the shuler, " and how are his daughters, the 
fine growing girls ? " 

" His fine daughters are well enough," said Thady, 
turning round. 

" There will be a grand marriage here some day," 
said the shuler, " I'm living on the thought of that 
marriage." 

" It's not marriage that's on our minds," Thady 
said, in a resigned way. 

The shuler was quick to detect something in his 
tone. 

" Is it death ? " she asked. 

" Ay, ma'am. Death," said Thady ; " Death comes 
to us all." 

" And is it Michael that is Hkely to die ? " 

" Michael himself," said Thady. 

This to the tramp was as the news of revolution to 
men of desperate fortune. The death of Michael 
Gilsenin would be a revolution with spoils and without 
dangers. She was thrilled with expectancy, and she 
said aloud : "0 God, receive the prayers of the poor, 
and be merciful to Michael Gilsenin this day and this 
night. May angels watch over him. May he receive 



232 MY IRISH YEAR 

a portion of the bed of heaven through the gracious 
intercession of the blessed Mother of God. May he 
reign in splendour through eternity. Amen, amen, 
amen." And crying out this she rose to her feet. 
" I'm going to his house," she said. " I'll go down 
on my two knees and I'll pray for the soul of Michael 
Gilsenin, the man who was good to the poor." She 
went towards the village striking her breast and 
muttering cries. Thady stood for a moment, looking 
after her ; then he began to hobble forward on his 
two sticks. They were hke a pair of old crows, 
hopping down the village, towards the house of 
Michael Gilsenin. 

She could never have imagined such comforts and 
conveniences as she saw now in the chamber of the 
dying man. There was the bed, large enough to 
hold three people, with its stiff hanging and its stiff 
counterpane, its fine sheets, its blankets and quilt, 
its heap of soft pillows. There was the carpet warm 
under her own feet, and then the curtains to the 
window that shut out the noise and the glare. A 
small table with fruit and wine was by the bed, 
and a red lamp burnt perpetually before the image 
of the Sacred Heart, and so the wasting body and 
the awakening soul had their comforts and their con- 
venience. Michael's two daughters were in the room. 
They stood there broken and Hstless ; they had just 
come out of the convent and this was their noviciate 
in grief. The shuler noted how rich was the stuff 
in their black dresses, and noted, too, their white 
hands, and the clever shape of their dresses. As for 
the dying man, she gave no heed to him after the 



MY IRISH YEAR 233 

first encounter. He was near his hour, and she had 
looked too often upon the coming of death. 

They gave her a bed in the loft, and she lay that 
night above the stable that was back of the great 
house. She had warmed herself by the kitchen fire, 
and had taken her fill of tea, and now she smoked 
and mused, well satisfied with herself. " This night 
I'm better off than the man in the wide bed," she said 
to herself. " I'm better off than you this night, 
Michael Gilsenin, for all your lands and shops and 
well-dressed daughters. I'm better off than you 
this night, Michael Gilsenin, for all your stock and 
riches. Faith, I can hear your cattle stir in the sheds, 
and in a while you won't even hear the rain upon the 
grass. You have children to come after you, Michael 
Gilsenin, but that's not much after all, for they'll 
forget you when they've come from the burial. Ay, 
they will in troth ! I've forgotten the man that 
lay beside me, and the child that I carried in my 
arms." She pulled a sack over her feet and knees 
and up to the waist, and sleep came to her on the 
straw. But she was awake and felt the tremor 
through the house, when Death came and took his 
dues. From that onward her sleep was broken, for 
people had come and horses were being brought out 
of the stable. Once old Thady came out, and the 
shuler heard him mutter about the loss in hay and 
oats. 

When she came down to the yard she saw a well- 
dressed young man tending his horse. One of 
Michael's daughters came and stood with the young 
man, and the two talked earnestly together. The 
shuler knelt down on a flag and began sobbing and 



234 MY IRISH YEAR 

clapping her hands, she was working up to a paroxysm, 
but gradually, for she wanted to attract the atten- 
tion of the pair without distressing them overmuch. 
The girl went indoors, and the young man followed 
her. The shuler saw two empty bottles ; they were 
worth a penny. She hid them under her dress and 
went into the house. She made her way to the 
front door, passing by many. People of importance 
were coming, and in such an assembly something 
surely would be gained. She stood by the street 
door and watched the great people come, priests, 
doctors, lawyers, shopkeepers and councillors. She 
stood there like an old carrion bird, her eyes were 
keen with greed, and her outstretched hand was 
shaking. She heard old Thady sa3dng, " Now, 
thank God, we can be clear for the day of the fair. 
I was thinking that he would still be with us on the 
fair day, and we would have to close the shop, and 
that would be a great loss to us. Now we can have 
everything cleared off in time. God be good to 
Michael's soul." 



X 

The priest turned from the altar and dehvered the 
Gospel to the people ; he was a peasant and built on 
enduring primitive hues, but old age had overtaken 
him, and there was weariness and feebleness in his 
attitude and speech. He was translating the Gospel 
into the tongue of the people, and his labour gave the 
words a pathetic appeal. Earnestly and with effort 
he related the Gospel story, and the language he used, 
the speech of peasants and fishermen, brought one 




<; y. 



MY IRISH YEAR 235 

back to the Gospel age. He told the story of the 
Apostles' vision, the Saviour walking the waters, and 
the words, " Let fear not be on ye," seemed more 
intimate, more comforting in the endearing Irish 
speech. He preached for a while from the text, and 
then, without any lapse from earnestness or dignity, 
went on to speak about the crops, about the necessity 
for spraying the potatoes, about an offer made to the 
district through one of the Government Departments. 
Then he spoke for a while about the death of a man 
well known to all the people, a man who was of the 
priest's own blood and name. He returned to the 
Gospel text, and said again, feebly and heavily, " Let 
fear not be on ye." 

The people did not disperse after mass ; they 
waited about the village and near the chapel to attend 
the burial. The girls went into the houses in the 
village, and the young men stood together gossiping 
or telKng stories. The devotees went into the house 
where the dead was laid out, and a few old men and 
women lingered in the chapel yard to repeat the 
traditional prayer on leaving mass : — 

" Christ, farewell, Mary, farewell ! 
The Apostles keep me till I come again ! " 

It was a day that might have been consecrated to 
some village festival. The summer had come with 
warmth and light and ease, and the corn stood high 
in quiet attainment. The children were happy in 
their holiday dresses. Those beautiful Connacht 
children had nobler promise than the growing corn 
or the deHghtful day. 
The coffin was borne out on men's shoulders, and 



MY IRISH YEAR 

the people fell into order and moved after the bearers. 
Theii' way was across fields to a churchyard that held 
many generations of their dead. And now the 
children pulled woodbine out of the hedges and 
plucked the foxglove that stood high in the ditches. 
The procession moved as though the people were 
taking part in some grave idyll. In that procession 
one could see a representation of the life and history 
of peasant Ireland. 

Old men tramped resolutely on. They hved by 
earnestness and hope, and their bowed shoulders and 
hanging, uncouth hands brought a religious element 
into the funeral procession. They looked as if they 
had been moulded by a common force, but many of 
them had come back to their httle patch of land from 
the streets of New York, from the dockyards of 
England, from the factories of Scotland. Beside 
these old peasants walked men of a different world, 
their sons and nephews who were back from America 
for a season. These Irish- Americans looked prosper- 
ous and effectual, powerful of mouth and jaw. The 
people near the coffin were from the country towns ; 
they were types of those who had profited by the 
social revolution. The young men of the peasantry 
looked keen and ready ; they were exuberant on the 
surface, secretive in the depths. The young girls 
and the old women still wore the peasant shawl ; 
amongst the women, too, there were returned 
emigrants, bringing with them dresses and fashions 
that were incongruous here. These women had 
marked individuaUties ; they were the unconscious 
guardians of a civilisation that had been swept from 
all places except the hearth. 



MY IRISH YEAR 237 

The coffin had been borne through the gate, and 
while the people were still crossing the fields they 
heard the lament for the dead. It rose suddenly, a 
savage abandonment to grief. Other voices joined 
in, and the caoine took on its rhythmical, monotonous 
form. The voice of the women became remote and 
unfamiliar, and then one heard the veritable cry that 
has gone up from every field in Europe and Asia, the 
cry that has a memory of all grief, the sorrow of 
fathers for their strong sons, the heartbreak of women 
for their husbands and homes, the desolation and 
despair of broken clans. The people entered the 
graveyard with that monotonous lament beating 
at their hearts. And now, in the beautiful Gaehc 
phrase, they were in the Meadow of the Dead. The 
grass was high and green over the ridges of graves, 
and ash trees with youthful branches and leaves 
joyous in the sunlight grew above the dead. A 
woman left the throng and hurried amongst the 
graves calling out to her dead. Then many went 
amongst the graves, some hurriedly, some slowly and 
reluctantly. Clay fell on the coffin of the newly dead, 
but the sound was lost in a general lamentation. 
Old and young, men and women, wept for their 
kindred. Some, in the vehemence of their grief, 
broke branches from the trees, and the green boughs 
of the ash were strewn upon the graves. 

It was no longer a lament for one man dead, it was 
a mourning for the dead generally, for the fact of 
death. So thought one who moved amongst the 
graves, an onlooker. Then one figure brought the 
sorrow to his heart as with a direct utterance. This 
was the figure of a girl who knelt by a grave. She 



238 MY IRISH YEAR 

was massively and nobly formed, and in her dark 
face there was an unrealised force, a slumbering 
passion. She belonged to the dark type that is called 
Spanish in the West of Ireland, which is Iberian 
perhaps, and belonging to the people whom the new- 
coming Milesians described as Firbolgs. She knelt 
by the grave of a young man, weeping silently, 
without the caoine. 



XI 

" We have ' Yanks ' golore," the people of Connacht 
say, corrupting their Irish with that ugly word. At 
every market there are hard-featured men and groups 
of young women in hats and flounced dresses. A few 
of the men and women will settle down and become re- 
Hibernicised, but the great majority will take flight 
in September, returning to Chicago, New York, or 
Boston. 

We are at a cehdh (social gathering) in a little 
Connacht house. Two men are sitting apart, talking 
very quietly. Given a photograph of the pair, it 
would be hard to guess their nationality. They are 
both well dressed, showing good linen, with studs and 
links. The younger of the two, a man with veiled 
eyes, an oHve face, and waxed moustache, looks like 
a South European. In regard to their surroundings 
both faces have detachment and reserve. They are 
talking in a language that is not English. The 
syllables are harsh and satirical in the mouth of the 
elder man ; they flow on soft and elusive in the 
mouth of the youth. They are talking in Irish about 



MY IRISH YEAR 239 

American elections and the subterranean politics of 
New York. The younger man rises, and as a stranger 
joins in the dance. The other sits in the corner, 
playing with his watch-chain and drinking his whisky. 
He is the son of the woman of the house, of that very 
active little woman who sits by the fire carding wool. 

Peter Hanlon owns a saloon in New York, and this 
is his first visit home in ten years. He looks like a 
man who has dealt with the toughest elements. 
There is a streak of power in him which might turn 
to violence and oppression. He is an uneducated 
man and is often baffled on the plane of intellect. 
These defeats make him sullen at first, and after- 
wards cause him to exercise his satirical powers. Like 
most of the " Yanks " he is ostentatious of his wealth. 
It is known that he is on the look-out for a wife from 
amongst the country girls. He does not want any 
woman who has been in America. He remains aloof 
from the entertainment, but occasionally he is taken 
by the verse of a song or a name in an anecdote. It 
is a curious fact that he has more of the folk-songs 
than the young men who have remained at home. 
He has intimacy with the old Hfe, for the reason that 
in America he lives amongst the people of his village ; 
he remembers songs, anecdotes, and characters 
because he has had no new mental or emotional 
experiences. 

A stranger in the house, a girl who is an instructress 
in lacemaking, ventures on the remark that people 
should strive to stay in Ireland. Peter Hanlon turns 
on her. " Why would anyone stay here ? There 
isn't potatoes and salt for the people. There is 
nothing here but starvation." He rises and throws 



240 MY IRISH YEAR 

open the door. " Do you see the lights below ? I 
mind the time when there were dozens of lights 
where there are only three or four now." He speaks 
angrily, as if he had a grievance against Ireland 
and were glad of the loss of its population. To sug- 
gest that there are possibilities in the country is to 
detract from his success. Men like Peter Hanlon 
come back amongst a people who knew them as bare- 
footed boys running the roads, and they feel that their 
superiority must be unquestioned. They think of 
Ireland as a stepmother who starved and degraded 
them. They think of America as a country that 
arouses then- will and their strongest capacity. To 
them Ireland is a futile little Island subject to a people 
more foreign to Irish-America than Germans, Poles, 
or Hungarians. They think that the people of Ireland 
Hve on doles from American relatives, and that their 
pohtical movements are mere excuses for getting 
contributions from the States. Peter Hanlon is 
angry that he should be challenged amongst the 
peasants. He goes into the room and is joined by 
the other " Yank," his cousin. They sit down to a 
silent game of cards. 

Meanwhile the hfe of the little cabin goes on. 
Michael, Peter's young brother, sits on the settle, 
occasionally joining in the talk. He is a soft-looking 
young man who spends his life on the little farm. 
The fields are so small that a plough cannot be used 
on them, and all the labour has to be done with 
Michael's spade. Out of the cold of the evening two 
little girls come. They are the grandchildren of the 
old woman. Bare-footed, they have been herding 
the cows along the empty road. Now the cows have 



MY IRISH YEAR 241 

come home and the children sit down to the warmth 
and gaiety of the evening. More visitors come to fill 
up the little place ; two of the girls are " Yanks." 
They have loud voices, and they mix American slang 
with their Irish and English. Their speech and 
manners are an intrusion, but these girls are devoted 
daughters and sisters whose earnings have kept homes 
together. The devotion of the emigrant — a devotion 
to family, not to country — shows best in the women. 
The girls are anxious to talk with the teacher, and 
their conversation reveals an extraordinary ignorance 
of Ireland. They are interested to hear that Dublin 
has a population of some hundred thousands, that 
the streets are paved, that electric cars run in the 
city. They know something of American institutions 
and American history, but of Irish ideals and Irish 
history they know nothing. One of the girls has read 
about Robert Emmet in an American newspaper. 
Parnell and Daniel O'Connell are names to them. 
The " Yank " girls are less youthful than girls of 
the same age who stay at home. They look worn. 
Many of them who come on a visit are anxious to 
marry and settle at home. Their savings make a 
fortune larger than the dowries that go with the 
daughters of the smaller farmers, but in spite of their 
dowries the young men do not regard them as desir- 
able matches. Their life in America has aged them, 
and they have come to dislike the crudeness of the 
farm. The girls, servants in good American houses, 
have an effect on the domestic economy of the country. 
They bring in better cookery, and they initiate better 
household arrangements. Generally, on their return, 
they bring a brother or sister with them. 
Q 



242 MY IRISH YEAR 

Meantime the " Yanks " are six weeks from 
September, when they return on the big hner. The 
girls contrive to amuse themselves, but towards the 
end they become restless for the start. The men 
attend the fairs and markets, and in the intervals try 
to give themselves the illusion that the village public- 
house is a New York saloon. Peter Hanlon stays in 
his mother's cabin, and sometimes he tries to evoke 
an interest in the turf and the pigs. He stands in 
one of the little fields, behind a wall of loosely piled 
stones, a heavy look on his face. 



XII 

A girl whom I knew came into the shop I frequented 
when in that part of the West of Ireland. Her 
greeting was constrained and she stood silent and 
apart, with a shawl across her head. She had taken 
me to many festivities during the months I was in 
that place. I came over and spoke to her in Irish : 
" When will there be a dance in your village," I asked. 
" There's a dance to-night," she said, " if you would 
care to come." " Is it at the Stones ? " " No, it's 
at our house. It's the night of my own wake." 

She did not use the word in its generally accepted 
sense. In some of the Irish-speaking districts the 
word " Wake " has come to signify the last gathering 
around the boy or girl who is leaving the village for 
Boston or New York. Grania was in the shop, to 
buy provisions for her American wake. I had seen 
another part of Peasant Ireland denuded of its vitality 
by emigration, and I thought of Grania as typical 



MY IRISH YEAR 243 

of the robust, handsome and high-spirited youth, 
who go away and become lost in the commonness 
of America or return to Ireland for a while, vulgarised 
and dissatisfied. She bade good-bye to those in the 
shop and gave me the word to come with her. Our 
path was between walls of loose stones that went 
across a country strewn with boulders. On account 
of these bare surfaces of rock the landscape was toned 
with greyness. There was no luminary in the early 
night ; the full moon was gone and the new moon 
had not made its appearance. It is customary in 
this part of the country to use the English word 
" village " as the equivalent of their area of com- 
munity. But the picture brought up by the word 
has no relation to their scattered hamlet. The 
houses were scattered through miles of uneven 
territory, and no roof was visible from the door of 
another house. 

We met Grania's mother before we came to the 
house. She was one of those women who smile as 
though they did not understand what was happen- 
ing or what was being said. She was silent and 
smiled as though speech had been frightened from 
her. The father greeted me at the door and brought 
me to the circle that was round the fire. He was 
a stolid and silent man. Another old man at the 
fire spoke eloquently and passionately in Irish. 
" Every man has his rearing, except the poor Irish- 
man. This is the way with him. When his children 
grow up, they scatter from him like the little birds." 
Grania had taken off her shawl and was busy in the 
household duties. There was some intensity in her 
maimer, but she made herself pleasant and capable. 



244 MY IRISH YEAR 

While I waited a remarkable person engaged me in 
polite conversation. She was a woman between 
fifty and sixty, with a wide-shaped mouth and 
tolerant worldly eyes. She had the manners of an 
aristocrat and the faculty of being amused by her 
fellow- creatures. Her manners were designed to 
show an overwhelming interest in the person whom 
she addressed, but it was hard to say whether she 
laughed with you or laughed at you. There was 
salt in her conversation, and she was witty in two 
languages. 

Tea was served in the upper room, and I went there 
as the young people were beginning to arrive. This 
sleeping room was expressive of the influences that 
are changing Irish rural life. There was an open 
American trunk, and dresses sent from New York 
or Boston were lying on the bed. On the wall was 
a fine mirror that would have been in its place in 
the dressing-room of an actress. Visitors had been 
coming, singly and in couples, and on going back to 
the kitchen I encountered something like a mob. 
People were standing three-deep from the walls. 
I heard a discord of music and song, the clash of 
grave speaking with loud-tongued humour, of gossip 
and boisterous flirtation, of American nasals and full- 
sounding Gaelic vowels. The children crowded to- 
gether in the recess of the wide chimney, and the old 
people kept going into and coming out of the inner 
room. People were speaking of a dance, but a 
stranger would wonder whether there was room for a 
dance between the dresser and the fire on the hearth, 
between the table and the meal bins. Grania drew 
out the partners for the girls, arranged the dance, 



MY IRISH YEAR 245 

and induced a quiet man to play on the flute. The 
figures in the dance were compHcated, but even the 
swinging of the partners was accompUshed with 
safety. 

After some rounds of dancing, songs were given. 
EngUsh words were most in the fashion. Some of 
the songs were in the Irish tradition, some had been 
brought home by the workers in Scotland or England, 
and some had come out of American music halls. 
I pressed for one of their own traditional songs. I 
could not make an advance in kind, but I recited a 
poem in Irish, and after that the company were in- 
clined to my request. A young man whom I had 
noticed for his satirical powers stood up for the song. 
It was of the locality, and it satirised a person whose 
character had comic associations for the company. 
The narrative begins in the house of Shawn, the 
person satirised. It is in the middle of the night, 
and Shawn and his dependants are in their beds. 
Some one gives the alarm — the cow has gone astray. 
Shawn rises and in the dark gropes for his garments. 
And Shawn and his adherents are off on the quest. 
Alone he finds his cow. He waits till dawn, and then 
takes the homeward trail. Now he is in need of rest 
and refreshment. He comes to a lonely house and 
is admitted. A single woman entertains him, and a 
district, awakened by the commotion of the search, 
sees Shawn, the guileless man, leave the house at an 
ambiguous hour. To save the good name of the 
district he and the woman marry. In this way 
Shawn gets his wife. The song set forth a comedy 
of manners and it was received with applause. When 
it was over I discovered that the singer was the 



246 MY IRISH YEAR 

maker, and that he was noted through the countryside 
for his stinging ranns. A young and handsome boy 
sang another ballad in Irish. It was the lament of 
a man who had been put into prison, " Not for killing, 
not for stealing, but for making the brew that pays 
no duty." " My hair was cropped round my ears, 
and ugly clothes were put upon me. For nine months 
I was there, without company, without music." 
The last phrase was a flash of the Celtic spirit. It 
brought to my mind a romance of the Heroic Age, 
in which one of the Fianna complains, " For three 
days we were in the pit without food, without drink, 
without music." 

The night wore on with dance and song, with 
challenge and repartee. Grania left us and stayed 
in the upper room for a while. When she returned 
she was in wild spirits and set about forming 
another dance. The orchestra was changed for this. 
She brought down a fiddle and a young man under- 
took to play. Only the wildest spirits were in this 
last dance that was on the skirts of the creeping day. 
Before the dance ended Grania's brother went from 
us, and we saw him take the harness down from the 
wall. It was an action as significant as anything in 
drama. The dance went on, but we heard the stamp 
of the awakened horse and the rattle of the harness 
as the conveyance was made ready for the journey. 
The dance fluttered out. Through the little window 
the trees became visible, then we saw colour, the 
green of the grass and the green of the leaves. 
Grania left the revellers and went into the room where 
her mother was busy. All of us who were in the 
kitchen went outside, so that those who were parting 



MY IRISH YEAR 247 

would have the place to themselves. In the morning 
world the corncrakes were crying through the 
meadows. They were quiet in the house now, and 
the chirrup of dawn made me wish for the overcoat 
I had left within. I went inside. After the vivid 
life I felt the emptiness of the kitchen: the fire 
had burnt to ashes and the broad light through the 
window was on the flame of the lamp. As I was 
going out Grania came down, dressed for the journey. 
The poor girl was changed. She was dazed with 
grief. 

She sat on the cart that went down the stony road, 
and the remnant of the company followed. Further 
on they would meet more carts with other emigrants, 
boys and girls. The cart jogged itself on to the main 
road ; as yet there was only a single figure on the 
way, a man driving a cow to some far-off fair. We 
bade good-bye to Grania and separated. On my 
way back I passed her house ; it was soundless and 
closed in as if the house had not yet wakened into 
Hfe. 



XIII 

It was in a village in the West of Ireland. Three 
men withdrawing themselves from the business of 
the fair gave themselves up to its festivity. The 
sympathetic bond was close, and now the common 
mind of the trio was disposed to regard itself as the 
arbiter of things musical. They had drawn a stranger 
piper to their station before Flynn's pubHc-house, 
and they listened to his music with faces that might 



S48 MY IRISH YEAR 

have damped a musicians' enthusiasm. But the 
piper was bHnd. 

He finished the piece and turned to his patrons 
with the ardour that was the very colour of his hfe. 
" There's the tune for you now," he cried, " and 
I couldn't play it better if you were to pay me a 
hundred pounds." Thomas Bacach, the lame flute- 
player, removed a pipe from his own mouth and said 
dehberately, " We're not going to pay you a hundred 
pounds, and I can tell you that we have heard that 
tune better played." Kavanagh and young O'Hart 
concurred ; they could say that they had heard the 
playing of them that were of the breed of pipers, 
the Griffins and the Joyces. 

" I won't ask for the hundred pounds this time," 
said the blind piper,' " but give me the little provision 
for the road." 

The flute-player had silver in his pocket since 
Sunday's dance, and he was content to patronise the 
strange musician. " We're not done with you yet," 
said he. " We think that from the look of you, you 
could give us a good song." 

The musician had another in the audience besides 
his three patrons. A slovenly-looking old man had 
been standing in the background, he shuffled up to 
the musician now, and stood beside him, panting like 
an old sheep. " Who's there ? " cried the piper, 
turning his attentive face on the ignoble apparition. 
The pauper's bag hung across the old fellow's back, 
and a shrivelled, shaking hand was upon his staff. 

" Who is he ? " said the flute-player. " A poor 
man that gets his living here and there. Lift up the 
song now, and let us hear the words of it, straight 



MY IRISH YEAR U9 

and plain." With a little preparation the musician 
began the lay. It was a dramatic recitation rather 
than a song. The piece was in Irish, and it told of 
a man who meets a woman of The Other People, 
a fairy woman who proffers love to him. Told by 
the piper the narrative was convincing, for his ardour 
created the scene before you, and besides, he looked 
like one who might have met with such an adventure. 
He had the face of one who lived in the poet's in- 
tellectual world, and age and blindness had left him 
heroic, childhke, and glad. He related how the 
man of the adventure became in dread, now dis- 
praised himself by saying that he was peevish and 
ill-mannered and without the power of pleasing 
women. The musician went on, but it was soon 
apparent that he had wandered into another narra- 
tive. " Easy now," said Thomas Bacach, " tell us 
what the fairy woman did to the man." 

" Begob, I'm past that," said the piper. 

If you had been watching the old pauper you 
would have said that a muddied thaw had set in 
within his brain, and that the pressure was Uke to 
burst his eyeballs. Looking absurdly fierce he said : 
" She — sh — said it's — ^it's — a wonder you talk to me 
like that " 

" That's it," cried the piper. " It's a wonder you 
talk to me like that, you knowing all the great kings 
I have destroyed." He went back to the mortal's 
excuses, and finished the poem with its fine imagina- 
tive chmax. He tucked the pipes under his arm 
and stretched out his hat, gaining pence apiece from 
his patrons. He put out his arm for guidance and 
the pauper touched his hand. " Put me on the high 



250 MY IRISH YEAR 

road, kind man," said the piper. " But sure I ought 
to know these roads well." 

So together they mounted the road, two old men 
with staffs in their hands. Whiteness was on the hair 
and beards of both. The musician, for all his power 
and erectness, was not much younger than the man 
with the bag. The years had ennobled his face, giving 
it a more clear outhne, a colour nearer to marble. 
In his face there were ardours and intellect and the 
beauty of the creature that had never submitted 
to yoke. His eyeballs, far-sunken in his head, 
were astonishingly contracted. Those blinded eyes, 
the Hues of his features that suggest remote ways, 
gave the face a strangeness that had in it something 
repellent. The man beside him was of the average 
humanity, one without excess of will or excess of 
intellect, one prone to follies, prone to pieties. The 
pauper's bag hung across his back, and all the things 
that affront humanity had overtaken him — age, 
neglect, and decay. His face was without determina- 
tion of outline, his clothes were slovenly and dirty, 
and yet he had a dignity that made a real pathos. 
This man, surely, had drunken at the same breast as 
yourself. And now as he went on with the other, 
tears streamed down his face. 

" Myles, a-Gradh,'^ said he. " Are you bHnd 
altogether, Myles ? " 

" Who's that ? " cried the bUnd man. " Is it John ? 
Is it my brother John ? Well now, isn't this the 
queerest thing that ever happened ? " 

" Are you blind, Myles ? Can you see at 
all?" 

" I have a glim — just a glim of sight. And was 



MY IRISH YEAR 251 

it you, my brother, that they mentioned as the poor 
man ? " 

"I'll— I'll whisper it to you, Myles. I've— I've 
the bag on my back." 

" And your hand, John ? What came over this 
hand ? " 

" It — it withered up on me." 

The pair had been standing on the road, but now 
the restless temper of the blind man urged him for- 
ward again. He put the stick before him, saying, 
" I've to be at the pattern at Moylena to-morrow. 
I'm staying to-night at Crossgar, at the house of one 
of the Maclnerney's." 

" Is it Brian Maclnerney's ? " 

" Ay, Brian Maclnerney's. It's a long time since 
you saw me, John. It's about a score of years, 
I think." 

" A score of years," said John. " It's a score of 
years and more. Wasn't it at the time when the 
Prussians and the French were at war ? " 

" It was," said Myles. " I was gathering up horses 
for French George and I met you in the town below." 

John's brows were bristHng again, giving him that 
look of absurd fierceness. " Michael Joyce was in 
the town and we went into his house, and we had a 
drink together." 

" Ay, in troth." 

" I tell you it's more than a score of years. It's 
nearly two score years." 

" No matter for that," said Myles. " I came back 
again from France, and I was concerned with horses 
again for a term of years. My eyesight failed me 
then, and I took to the road with the pipes." 



252 MY IRISH YEAR 

" And had you any rearing, Myles ? " 

" A couple of sons, but they scattered East and 
West on me. One of them joined the EngUsh and 
got killed in their bloody wars." 

" I had the one son. He married — married a 
woman, do ye see." 

" Ay, surely." 

" And the woman dealt in a shop — buying things — 
things that weren't wanted, maybe." 
1 see. 

" And it fell out that we owed the shop as much as 
twenty pounds." 

" The price of a horse, bedad." 

" And — and — they put us out of the holding, do 
ye see ? " 

" Who put ye out ? Was it the landlord ? " 

" The Court — the Session Court — do ye see." 

" And where are you Uving now, John ? " 

" I'm not hving with them, I tell you — I'm not 
living with my son and his woman. They's put me 
out across the door." 

" And how are you situated, John ? " 

" The neighbours built me a hut — they didn't 
like me to be sleeping in their houses, do ye see — 
an oul' man by the fire — it isn't nice. They'd come 
together on a Sunday and build up a little place for 
me — putting the one stone on top of the other, 
do ye see. Well, there's a spark of fire there, 
anyway." 

" Maybe, I'll go up with you, John." 

" Do, a-Gradh. Here is the turn. Up this little 
road." 

" Faith, I know this way well. Now, what am I 



MY IRISH YEAR 253 

thinking about ? Una Paralon used to live up there 
when she was a girl." 

" Now, aren't you great to remember that." 

" Is it far up to the hut, John ? " 

" A couple of turns above the place where the 
Paralons lived." 

" It's a long road and a stony road, John. No, 
John, I won't go up." 

" I've a bit in the bag and I'll put a spark of fire 
under the pot. Come up to my little house, a-Gradh.'''' 

" No, John. Step down a bit of the road with me. 
I'm feeling lonesome. They say, John, that after you 
go rambhng one place is just the same as another." 

" Maybe they're not right, Myles." 

" They're not right, John. Look up at the sky, 
John and tell me if it's going to rain ? " 

" It's not going to rain. Maybe you'd best be 
going now while you've the blessed light." 

" I'm going on now, John. The blessing of God 
with you." 

" The dear blessing of God with you, brother." 

Along the road between two bogs the blind man 
went, fine and erect in the evening light, and the man 
watching him stood as motionless as the old horse 
turned out into the field. 



XIV 

The Flute Player's Story 

There is a road in Connemara which seems to have 
been invented by some racial spirit, so that the 
Wanderlust might be perpetuated in us. When you 



254 MY IRISH YEAR 

set foot on that road you must go on till the sense of 
its infinity wearies you. You stop, but your spirit is 
stiU upon the road. Sometimes you meet people, 
women generally, driving asses. They are in twos 
and threes making some journey together. Once I 
asked one of these women where the road went when 
it crossed the hiUs. She had never heard. I asked 
her what was the nearest town along the road. She 
gave it a soft monosyllabic name. I asked her how 
long, in her opinion, it would take me to get to that 
town, walking. She said, in Irish, " My treasure, if 
you were to set out now (it was in the early afternoon), 
you would be in the town with the daylight." I 
never reached the town with the soft monosyllabic 
name. One day I went far along the road. I had 
passed where the lake, a wide, sailless stretch of water, 
had made a beach for itself. There was a wide bog 
on both sides of me, and before me were the silent 
enfolding hills. I saw a huddled figure by the grass 
of a ditch. Before I came near it a cychst-policeman 
had swooped down, and the figure was on its feet. A 
man stood in the middle of the road swaying about, 
a corpulent figure, big and round of stomach. I per- 
ceived that his chin had many folds, that his eyes 
were small and dead-looking, that in spite of his 
watch-chain, his manners were obsequious. I could 
not rid my mind of the impression that this man was 
somehow connected with the sea. Yet it was im- 
possible to imagine such a creature on board ship. 
He was of the docks rather than of the ocean. He 
might be a person who had drowsed and fattened in 
some little marine store. Evidently the poHceman 
wanted the man to move somewhere ; yet there were 



MY IRISH YEAR 255 

three very good reasons for the man's mertia. In the 
first place, he was as gross as matter ; in the second 
place, he was lame of a leg ; in the third place, he was 
drunk. I heard the policeman ask him where he had 
spent the previous night. The man, bringing, as it 
were, thought-particles from afar off, informed the 
law that the town of Ballinasleeve was his last abiding 
place. Ballinasleeve is in the inhabited country 
which I had just left behind. " And are you a trades- 
man ? " asked the policeman. With ponderous 
gravity the man repUed, " Well, no, sir, I am not a 
tradesman. I am a musician, a strolling musician. 
Sir, I play upon the flute." 

A musician ! A strolling player ! One that made 
music on a flute ! If incongruity is humour, here was 
comedy indeed. The policeman spoke out of a great 
amaze ! "A musician — a strolling player ! Do you 
tell me that ? " 

" Sir," said the man, " why would I be deceiving 
a policeman ? Here is my instrument." He took 
out of his breast-pocket a flute. The pohceman 
examined it incredulously, while the strolling player, 
hat in hand, wiped his head with a red pocket-hand- 
kerchief. His bald head shone in the evening sun. 

" Can you play on this ? " the policeman inquired. 

" I can," said the musician. " Drunk or sober I 
can play upon a flute. Sometimes I can play better 
than at other times. I could play better after 
a sleep." The pohceman gave him back the 
flute. The man turned to go. He turned towards 
Ballinasleeve and the abodes of men. 

" Stop," said the law. " I thought you told me 
that you had spent the night in Ballinasleeve ? " 



256 MY IRISH YEAR 

" Yes, sir ; I spent the night in the town of 
Ballinasleeve." 

" Well, then, move the other way," said the pohce- 
man. He mounted the machine. The man swayed 
about. Then he moved some paces in obedience to 
the edict. I noted that the policeman had risen above 
local and temporal law. He had expressed the eternal 
and universal law. " You must move to live." In 
obedience to this the artist took a few steps into the 
wilderness. Then he plunged forward, and lay face 
downwards in the ditch. I went on, meditating on 
the Law. 



Coming back along the road I heard the sound of 
a flute. The artist was playing to some workers in 
a far-oS bog. His head w^as bare and shining. The 
red handkerchief was about his neck. He had worked 
himself into a mild ecstasy, and was capering about 
on the road. He sat down by the side of the road. 
I went and sat near him. 

" It's well for you that has the music," I said to 
him in Irish. 

" The music that I play is not the best of music," 
said the man, speaking in Irish also. " But the 
people of the country hke it." 

" You have good Irish," I said, " but I don't 
think you're a Connaught man." 

" I'm a long time on the roads of Connaught," 
he said. I asked the man for the time. He drew 
out a large silver watch, and told me the hour. I 
watched the mountain across the lake. The side 
of it was brown, steeped in the rays of the sun. 



MY IRISH YEAR 257 

The little bunches of sheep seemed to crawl up and 
down. I loafed, and invited my soul to loaf. I 
talked to the musician about fiddles, flutes, and that 
musical instrument which is becoming national and 
typical in the province of Connaught, the melodion. 
The man's soul was not on fire for his art ; he talked 
about it in the most objective and material way. He 
was certainly no Connaught man. His brain did not 
fling out words joyously. No word he said hinted the 
man's dream of himself. There he sat by the side of 
the road, talking, as if newly taken out of some dark 
little hand-me-down shop, or some httle eating-house, 
that had for a sign the cup and saucer. Still we 
gossiped for a long time. At last there was move- 
ment on the road. A van was going towards Ballin- 
asleeve, one of these wagons that hold the side show 
of a fair, and is a travelling house beside it. It was 
a red van with a little flue, drawn by a small and tired 
horse. A man and woman walked behind the van, 
and I recognised them for Mr and Mrs Antinous, 
circus people, and friends of mine. The flute player 
recognised them too, and the recognition brought a 
dull, malignant look to his face. The couple drew 
near, Mrs Antinous was a heavy figure, with a 
grotesque dress, stiff and black. Her husband was 
smoking and chirping as usual. How well I remem- 
bered Sammy, the Cockney husband of Mrs Antinous. 
Sammy was stone-deaf, but he apprehended certain 
things by a sort of heightened sensibility. Thus if 
you said, "■ What's the drinks ? " or " The same again," 
Sammy drew himself from the remotest corner 
of the shop, and stood before the counter without a 
word. I observed the one horse with interest. When 



258 MY IRISH YEAR 

I met the couple last in the County of Cavan the 
horses were five, and had recently been seven. Poor 
Mrs Antinous ! Her state had shrunk to this little 
measure. She walked along stolidly, but to me she 
was a tragic figure. 

They greeted me, and I stood talking to them for 
a while. The flute player remained, big and ugly, 
in the ditch. Mrs Antinous recognised him. She 
stopped her husband's idle chatter, and pointed out 
the musician. Sammy took the pipe out of his 
mouth, and twisted on his feet with a sort of pixie- 
glee. "It's William Ferguson," he said. " The 
missus' valentine," he said. " She's the honey- 
suckle and he's the bee ; he, he, he ! " Mr Antinous 
went over to the ditch. " How are you, William," 
he said. " It's a long time since we met, WilHam." 
William remained in the ditch as silent as a frog of 
the marsh. Mrs Antinous gripped her protector by 
the hand, and led him away, but Sammy was irrepres- 
sible. He turned his head many times as they went 
down the road. " William," said he, " the missus 
and myself desires you to afternoon tea. We'll send 
the ambulance for you, William." The flute player 
by this time had gathered his words together, " Go 
on," said he, " yourselves and your one horse." He 
turned to me, as I came up, the dull, malignant look 
still on his face. "It's a hired horse, too," he said ; 
" it's a horse of Flanagan's. Let her go. Maybe I'll 
stroll into the town to-morrow, and see what herself 
and him will be doing at the fair. They'll have a 
httle stand, and bottles for the men to throw rings 
over for penknives and the like. They'll make little 
at that. There's little drinking in the town now. 



MY IRISH YEAR 259 

The whole country has the mission-pledge. Where 
there isn't drinking there isn't sport, and it's 
no good having a shooting range or a little gallery. 
They're very low in the world. Would you believe 
it, sir, I once offered myself in marriage to that 
woman ? 

" You've probably heard about me from certain 
parties that you are acquainted with, but one story 
is good until another is told. My name is WilHam 
Ferguson. I'm from Scotland. I came from the 
city of Paisley. I was barbering for a while, but I 
was sacked from that because the proprietor thought 
I wasn't sociable enough as a barber. Then I was 
in the betting line, but the police came against me 
there. I came to Ireland with a gang of harvesters. 
I played for them on the flute. Then I settled down 
to live in Connaught. I got a bed here and there, 
and the people gave me the bit to eat. They have 
dances at certain places at this time of the year, and 
they make up a little collection for the musician. As 
to the woman gone by, I met her after I was a while 
in Connaught. She was a young widow then, with a 
husband after dying on her. Her husband was a 
man you may have heard of. Sarsfield was his 
name. 

" This Sarsfield died, and his widow would be well 
off if a woman could manage the circus business. 
She had a tarpaulin that would cover a field. It 
was worth a lot of money. She had an organ worth 
close on £50. It was played by steam. She had 
fifteen horses. I heard about Mrs Sarsfield in a house 
where I was taking a drink, and I thought that a 
job under her would be worth something. I went 



260 MY IRISH YEAR 

round, and asked for a job, and she put me collecting 
at the tent. She put another man to watch me. 
I held on to the job. You know, sir, that every man 
likes to settle down in Hfe, and for that reason I had 
thoughts of marrying Sarsfield's widow. I stood a 
likely chance. A woman can't look after a circus. 
The men that a woman will pay can't be relied on. 
It's the same in the barbering business. It's the same 
in all lines of business, except a pawn-shop. Now a 
circus is the most difficult hne that a woman could 
handle, because she has to watch both men and horses. 
I used to say to myself, ' You'll have to marry again, 
my good woman.' I had a good hand with horses, 
and that's curious when you think I was born and 
bred in the city of Paisley. However it is, the horses 
turn their heads to me when I walk down the street. 
I took charge of that woman's horses. It's likely 
she'll deny it now, but I tell you, sir, the horses kept 
in good shape while I had my hand on them. She 
couldn't help but notice how careful I was of her 
property. I mentioned marriage to her in a kind of 
a way, and in a sort of a way she let me know she 
wasn't ready for it. But she soon saw the way that 
things would go, and by degrees I prepared her mind 
for marriage. There was no arrangement between us. 
There was a sort of an agreement. There was no one 
except myself she could marry, and she'd have to 
marry soon. 

" It's not the way of men to see anyone else get 
ahead of them in any way. The other men got jealous 
of me, and they'd never miss a chance of doing an 
injury to me. They used to leave me to bring the 
horses to the river by myself. It's hard for a lame 



MY IRISH YEAR 261 

man to be legging it after horses. I used to have to 
give pennies to the boys of the town to give me a 
hand with the horses. They'd get them down to the 
river, and draw the water, and I'd manage the horses. 
It was while I was attending the horses one day that 
Antinous came up, and offered to give me a hand. 
He was a poor raggy fellow without a boot on his foot. 
He was sacked out of the swinging-boat business. I 
knew by the way that he touched horses that he was 
never used to live animals. I couldn't shake him off, 
for the man was deaf, and consequently gave no heed 
to my sayings. He brought the horses up to the tent, 
and was there before me. Mrs Sarsfield was at the 
van, and he was standing before her, bowing like the 
clown, and pattering away. He said she was the 
prairie flower, and mind you, the woman listened to 
him, though she could have heard the same thing in 
the ring any night." 

" I suppose she gave Antinous a job ? " I said. 

" She gave him a job," said my friend the flute 
player. " I think he begged the job off her. He 
told her he had no mother. She gave him the job, 
and he and me used to take the horses to the water 
every day. He knew nothing about horses. I let 
on to be sick one day, and I let him take the horses 
to the river by himself. It was a stony place. The 
horses' legs would have been broken only for some 
of the men gave Antinous a hand out of the ill-will 
they had for myself. When he came back Mrs 
Sarsfield brought him into tea. I didn't do a hand's 
turn for her that day, nor the next day, nor the day 
after. She came out to me then. Mind you, I 
didn't want to lose my job, but I told her she'd have 



26S MY IRISH YEAR 

to get rid of Sammy Antinous, or else part with 
myself. If she could see what would happen to her 
horses she would have given in. But that wasn't to 
be seen. 

" The end of the story happened in the town of 
Crossgar. There is a shop there owned by a widow 
woman of the name of MoUoy. When I was in the 
town I did nothing, but I often used to go into Mrs 
MoUoy's, and have a few glasses to myself without 
anyone to disturb me. This night I went in. I had 
the flute in my hand, and I made my way over to 
the counter. Before I sat down I looked round, and 
I saw Sammy Antinous and Mrs Sarsfield sitting on 
a bench. Sammy asked me to have a drink, but I 
refused him. I turned round, and I offered Mrs 
Sarsfield what was becoming to a lady, a glass of 
wine. She accepted my offer, and Sammy carried 
over the glass to her. I didn't drink anything myself, 
but I sat and watched her for a long time. ' Mrs 
Sarsfield,' I said to her, ' this young man can't hear 
us, so we may as well talk now. Look at him and look 
at me. He has no head, Mrs Sarsfield. I'm weak on 
the legs, but my head is sound. If you want to keep 
your horses sound marry me, and let me look after 
them.' She didn't drink at all, but she sat there very 
miserable. ' I don't know how it is,' she said, ' but 
I'm more used to this young man than I'm used to 
you.' Sammy was trying to listen all the time. ' I'm 
as used to horses,' he said, ' as horses are used to oats. 
I was managing horses when I was only up to 
William's leg.' ' They were wooden horses,' said 
I. ' He'll soon get used to live horses, Sammy will,' 
said the woman. She was very foolish. To the 



MY IRISH YEAR 263 

present time Sammy Antinous treats all manner of 
living horses as if they were wooden horses. Sammy 
got up to go to the counter, and I saw that Mrs 
Sarsfield slipped the money into his hand. I knew 
she'd have him after that, and there was no use in 
me waiting on. I turned to that woman, and I 
spoke words to her that brought the blush to her 
face. ' Ma'am,' said I, ' I'm sorry to see you behave 
in the way that a respectable woman would not be- 
have. You're marrying that young man, not that 
he might keep your little business together, not that 
he might be a protection to you, not that he might 
look after your horses. You're marrying him out of 
the passion of women,' I said ; ' and, mark my words, 
you will call the day cursed. Babylon fell,' I said, 
' and Rome fell, and the Scarlet Woman of Rome fell, 
and you'll fall hkewise.' I said no more. I let them 
go out. I drunk small whiskies, and when I wakened 
they were gone from the town. At the next station 
my words became true. A horse broke its leg at the 
watering-place. Ever since they lost horses, one 
here, and two there. She's going into the town now 
with a hired horse, without a tarpaulin, and without 
an organ. I doubt if she'll make enough to get the 
van drawn out of the town." 



The flute-player ended his story as the wandering 
moon lifted its fantastic shape above the lake. 



264 MY IRISH YEAR 

XV 

/ 

The Ballad-singer 

Market-day in the little Connacht town ; it is 
afternoon, and business is spasmodic. A man, 
standing in the wide street, is singing a ballad in a 
voice trained ior distance and the open air. He is 
in descent from the wandering minstrels, and his 
class has been kept alive by the excitements in rural 
Ireland. He belongs to a fraternity still very numer- 
ous. Their palmy days are over, however, for things 
have become more settled, and the ha'penny news- 
paper has arrived. Generally the minstrels carry 
with them a sheaf of ballads which they retail. Who 
writes these ballads that circulate from Donegal to 
Cork and from Dublin to Gal way ? Sometimes the 
authors are known. The ballads, in the main, are 
written by anonymous people, by shopkeepers, by 
schoolmasters, by policemen. Their place of pubHca- 
tion has a curious proximity. It is in Kilmainham, 
a place notable for the detention of political prisoners. 
The man in the street is without scripts. He is 
singing a ballad that has been on the road for over a 
hundred years : — 

" And what colour will they wear ? 
Says the Shan Van Vocht.i 
And what colour will they wear ? 

Says the Shan Van Vocht. 
What colour will be seen 
Where their fathers' homes have been 
But their own immortal green ? 
Says the Shan Van Vocht. 

1 " The Poor Old WomaOj'' a " secret" name for Ireland. 



MY IRISH YEAR 265 

What colour will be seen 
Where their fathers' homes have been 
But their own immortal green 
Says the Shan Van Vocht." 

The singer is a lame man. He is heavily built, wears 
a cap, and holds a stick in his hand. A roll of scarlet 
round his neck expresses something in the man — 
a certain rawness of life and crudeness of artistry. 
The song finished, he crosses the street and makes 
his way into the pubUc-house. With its crowd, the 
interior is a replica of the market. The people talking 
and drinking have been the ballad-singer's audience. 
He goes to the counter that crosses the upper end of 
the shop, and stands waiting on their attention. 

The ballad-singer takes off his cap. His big head 
is bald and his face is clean shaven. The big face 
has many protuberances on it. The nose looks like 
copper, and the face looks as if it had been burnished. 
The small knowledgable eyes watch the crowd atten- 
tively, but without any flash or eagerness. A tumbler 
of porter is given him, and the minstrel sits down 
on the end of a barrel. He salutes each person in 
the shop, drinks a httle porter, and having gained 
some attention, begins a song. The ballad is adapted 
to the audience. It relates the adventures of a band 
of Connacht labourers in England. The ballad 
begins : — 

" Then we sailed away across the bay, and we never received a 

shock, 
Till we landed safe and fairly reached the noble Clarence Dock. 
Then away we went with one intent, and we drank strong ale 

and wine. 
And we toasted then oul' Irelan' and the girls we left behiu'." 



266 MY IRISH YEAR 

He sings with great liveliness, using the short end 
of his stick like a conductor's baton, as though the 
song were the score and the crowd the orchestra. 
The song is a success, and a good many coppers are 
contributed. He says " Three cheers for Conne- 
mara, three cheers for Westport, three cheers for the 
place where we are." A man who has been drinking 
cries out in Irish, " And a health to Mayo, the county 
that's best in Eirinn." Facing the countryman, the 
ballad-singer begins the popular Gaelic song " Condae 
Mhuig-eo." The countryman sings the words aggres- 
sively and for the sake of order the publican inter- 
venes. The ballad-singer discreetly withdraws. 

Towards evening he presents himself at Mrs 
Jordan's, where non-stimulating commodities such 
as draperies and groceries are sold. Some women 
and one or two quiet men are in the shop. The 
minstrel enters as rather on a visit than a professional 
call. Mrs Jordan is showing girls some ribbons, 
and the ballad-singer permits himself to speak of 
her. "■ She's of a good family," he says ; " she's 
a woman of the Lacys. My mother belonged to the 
Lacys, and I'm proud of it." He has had refresh- 
ments since he came into the town, but the various 
treats have left him mellow of spirit and easy of 
manner. He sits down on a chair and addresses 
himself to each person in turn. " Mrs Coyne, you're 
looking well ; may God preserve you, ma'am." 
" And how is your good man, Mrs MacGowan ? " 
The chance customer in the shop is not left outside 
his interest. " How is your friend, your companion, 
your noble friend, Mr Jennings ? " He asks Mrs 
Jordan's permission to entertain the company. She 



MY IRISH YEAR 267 

signifies her approbation by leaning her elbows on 
the counter. His song is suited to the gentility of 
the company — 

" As I rowed out one morning all in the month of May, 
Down by the Sally Gardens I carelessly did stray. 
I overheard a fair maid as she in sorrow did complain, 
' It was on the Banks of Clady my darling did remain.' 

' This is the Banks of Clady, fair maid, whereon you stan', 
Do not depend on Johnny for he's a false young man. 
This is the Banks of Clady, but he'll not meet you here. 
But tarry with me in yon green wood where no danger you 
need fear.' 

' If my Johnny was with me here this night he'd keep me from 

all harm, 
But he's in the field of battle all in his uniform. 
But he's in the field of battle, his foes he does destroy 
Like a roaring King of Armies going to the wars of Troy.' 

' And it's six months now and better since your Johnny left 

the shore, 
He was crossing the main Ocean where the flowing billows roar. 
He was crossing the main Ocean for honour and for fame, 
As I've been told his ship was wrecked all off the coast of 

Spain.' 

And when she heard the bitter news she flew into despair- 
With the wringing of her hands and the tearing of her hair, 
Saying ' If Johnny he be drowned no man on earth I'll take, 
Through lonesome groves and valleys I'll wander for his sake.' 

And it's when he saw her loyalty he could no longer stan'. 
But falling in her arms he said ' Betsy, I'm the man. 
I'm that inconstant young man that caused you all the pain. 
And I'm now come back to Clady, and we'll never part again.' " 

The song is received with favour, and the singer adds 
some coppers to his stock. He goes out to the 
festivity of the town. 



268 MY IRISH YEAR 

It is evening, and the people from the market 
are dribbUng along the road. A barefoot child drives 
a donkey that has a sack of meal across its back. 
A cart crowded with people comes along. Then 
three or four women gossiping together. The 
mountain horses pass on, on the back of each a man, 
with a woman seated on the pillion behind him. 
With his cap off and his red muffler hanging across 
his coat, the ballad-singer is seated on a grassy ditch. 
He is in a happy frame of mind. He tells us that he 
is as correct a man as he knows how. We assure 
him of our regard, and he drinks to us, repeating the 
Connacht toast, which we will set down here : — 

Slan agus seaghal agat ; 
Bean ar do mliein agat ; 
Talamh gon cliios agat, 
Agus bas in Eirinn. 

Health and life to you ; 

The woman of your choice to you ; 

Land without rent to you. 

And death in Erinn. 



PART IV 

THE CRISIS IN IRELAND 



The Crisis 

Many English people and some politically unin- 
structed Irish people are of the opinion that for 
Great Britain and Ireland the administration is 
uniform. But the words " union " and " United 
Kingdom " and the very full Irish representation at 
Westminster mask the fact that the administration 
of Great Britain and the administration of Ireland 
form distinct types of government. In England 
each great department is represented by a Cabinet 
Minister who is responsible to a national parliament. 
In Ireland all the departments are represented by 
the Chief Secretary who is responsible to a parHament, 
which, in so far as it is national for Great Britain, 
is removed from Irish opinion and Irish interests. 
The government of Great Britain and the govern- 
ment of Ireland are fundamentally different — one 
emanates from a people and the other is imposed 
upon a people ; one is organic and the other is 
mechanical. " To look behind mere technicahties 
to the spirit of Government," says Mr Erskine 
Childers, " Ireland resembles one of that class of 
Crown Colonies of which Jamaica and Malta are 
examples, where the inhabitants exercise no control 
over administration and only partial control over 
legislation." Mr Childers again and again mentions 

271 



%n MY IRISH YEAR 

the Colonial as the type of Irish Government. Like 
all colonies, Ireland has a Governor or Lord Lieuten- 
ant of her own, an executive of her own, and a com- 
plete system of Government departments ; but her 
people, unlike the inhabitant of a self-governing colony, 
exercise no control over the administration. It is 
true that Ireland has a large representation at West- 
minster, and that this representation is supposed 
to give her sufficient legislative control over Irish 
affairs. Mr Childers notes that this control can be 
exercised only by cumbrous, circuitous and often 
profoundly unhealthy methods, and that over a wide 
range of matters it cannot by any method whatso- 
ever be exercised at all. The Chief Secretary is " a 
transitory and embarrassed phantom," and the 
government of Ireland in operation consists of Boards, 
the number of which is estimated as between forty- 
two and sixty- seven. As far as the Irish people are 
concerned these Boards have neither a soul to be 
saved nor a body to be kicked. With one exception, 
perhaps, they are immune to Irish opinion. The 
decrees of the Parliament at Westminster may not 
affect them. The Board of Intermediate Education, 
for instance, can defy and has defied a resolution of 
the House of Commons. The Boards are unpopular, 
unrepresentative and irresponsible ; they are also 
mighty expensive. They billet 100,000 persons upon 
the Irish state, and they absorb four millions a year 
in pay and pensions. Unfortunately to eyes accus- 
tomed to gigantic figures of British Revenue and 
Expenditure, this sum will not seem startling. But 
to an inhabitant of a country to which Ireland might 
fairly be likened, to a Dane or a Belgian, to a Por- 



MY IRISH YEAR 273 

tuguese or a Greek, four million pounds must appear 
a monstrous amount. 

The revenue raised in Ireland is large when com- 
pared with the revenue raised in the minor European 
States. It is between ten and twelve million pounds. 
Out of this revenue Ireland has been contributing 
a handsome surplus to the Imperial Exchequer. 
But according to recent Treasury Returns this 
surplus has disappeared, and the British Exchequer 
must now give a contribution to make up 
the difference between Irish Revenue and Irish 
Expenditure. 

It would be well to make clear the cause of 
the Irish deficit. Great Britain adopted Old Age 
Pensions on a scale commensurate with her ample 
resources and proportionate to standards of earning 
and spending amongst an industrial population. 
But the Irish Revenue is not ample and the cost of 
Irish administration is very high. To pay old age 
pensions on the British scale, Ireland has to overdraw 
her account. Hence the deficit. It should be noted, 
too, that in Ireland the people are country- dwelling, 
and their standards of earning and spending is much 
lower than amongst the urban population of Great 
Britain. A labourer at seventy has more as pension 
than he had as pay at thirty. And in Ireland the 
number of claimants is out of proportion to present 
population, because they are the remains of eight 
milhon people. The deficit may not lessen so long 
as present arrangements continue. It is bound to 
grow with the adoption in Ireland of National 
Insurance and other social measures promoted in 
Great Britain. 



274 MY IRISH YEAR 

What is to happen now ? According to the Irish 
Unionist, Great Britain must go on paying the differ- 
ence between Irish Revenue and Irish Expenditure. 
He maintains that the revenue of Great Britain and 
Ireland is to be regarded as a household's income. 
Ireland by right can draw on the British Exchequer 
for milhons per annum. The bigger the deficit the 
better for Ireland, because an unearned sum is 
handed across and spent amongst the Irish people. 
The Irish nationalist will not acquiesce to this 
arrangement. The deficit, he says, is expressive of 
the disharmony between the relations of the two 
countries. Make a change in these relations ; allow 
Ireland so much control over her resources as will 
allow her, in a definite time, to balance her 
revenue and her expenditure. This is the Home 
Rule solution. 

When I have written this I feel I must answer the 
arguments of the English reader of this book. I 
imagine that he or she has in her mind the objections 
that I have read in EngUsh newspapers : — 

The Reader. The creation of an Irish assembly 
with an executive responsible to it would be a 
departure in policy. 

The Writer. The creations of such assembhes in 
Canada, and Australia, and in South Africa, were 
departures in pohcy. 

The Reader. Home Rule would separate Ireland 
from Great Britain. 

The Writer. The Union at present exists in words, 
not in facts. Ireland has always had a separate 
government. A self-governing Ireland would be a 
developing Ireland, that more than the present 



MY IRISH YEAR 275 

Ireland would lean towards the source of capital 
and the centre of military and naval protection. 

The Reader. A national Government in Ireland 
would form the standing plant of revolution. 

The Writer. People do not hazard their every-day 
security for the mere sake of revolting. The attain- 
ment of national self-government is certainly worth 
a revolution. But where self-government has been 
attained a people become busy about developing 
their resources and creating a culture. 

The Reader, A self-governing Ireland might want 
to enter into alliances with States hostile to Great 
Britain. 

The Writer. For what reason ? Some generations 
ago, Irishmen desired an alliance with France. But 
Irish affairs were quite intolerable then. France 
is no longer hostile to Great Britain, and Ireland has 
no affinities with any other European country. 

The Reader. There are two peoples in Ireland. If 
we permitted a national government to be set up, 
affairs would eventuate in civil war. 

The Writer. There is only one people in Ireland — 
the Irish people. There are Catholics, Protestants, 
and Presbyterians amongst them, and, owing to 
English interventions these denominations have 
different poUtical tendencies for the moment. But 
when the question of Irish self-government is settled 
their differences will not be so broad. It is the 
struggle to gain self-government, and the struggle to 
retard self-government, that makes their differences 
emphatic. Let us talk about Belgium. Between 
Fleming and Walloon, CathoHc and Liberal, there 
are differences more acute than between CathoUc 



276 MY IRISH YEAR 

and Protestant in Ireland. But there is no civil war 
in Belgium. Neither Fleming nor Walloon, Catholic 
or Liberal, wish to upset the equilibrium of their 
self-governing State. 

The Reader. Most unaccountable things happen in 
Ireland — cattle-driving, boycotting, agrarian outrages. 
We never know of such things here. 

The Writer. That is because Great Britain is not 
an agricultural but an industrial country. Your 
disputes are industrial not agrarian. If our agrarian 
situation had been stated in industrial terms, you 
would understand it. The Land League that you 
once read about was a tenants' trades-union. Boy- 
cotting was a sort of picketting. Cattle-driving was 
the nature of a strike against a monopoly. These 
phases in Irish life are nearly over now. If they re- 
occur a national government is best fitted to deal 
with them. 

The Reader. You have not convinced me. 

The Writer. I have only tried to illuminate some 
points in a controversy. This is my stopping-place. 
I get off here. 



II 

The Opposition in Ireland 

In Ireland the opposition to self-government is 
in the coalition of Church of Ireland Protestants 
and North of Ireland Presbyterians. Each has a 
separate history. Now to realise the Protestant 
position we must begin by thinking of an ascendency 



MY IRISH YEAR 277 

that was once as complete and as extensive as the 
late Manchu ascendency in China. Numbering one- 
tenth of the population, the Episcopalian Protestants 
at the close of the eighteenth century held five- 
sixths of the landed property of Ireland, occupied 
the magistracy and the corporations, had practically 
a monopoly in the professions, controlled the ParUa- 
ment and the Government, enjoyed all the patronage 
and had a church- establishment to which the majority 
of their fellow-countrymen paid tithes. Since the 
first quarter of the nineteenth century great and 
successive rents have been made in the fabric of 
Episcopalian ascendency — Catholic Emancipation — 
Reform of the Corporations — Disestablishment of the 
Church of Ireland — Extension of the Franchise. 
Members of other religious denominations, having 
attained equahty of opportunity, were taking places 
in the professions and in the public services. Local 
ascendency was broken up. In 1881 Legislation 
took a turn destined to plant the CathoHc peasantry 
in the soil, and to leave the Protestant landowners 
a pensioned proletariat. The self-elected Protestant 
Grand Juries were replaced by properly elected 
local councils. To-day the Episcopalian Protestants 
number 575,487, to the Presbyterian 439,876, and the 
Catholic 3,238,656. They are the merchants and 
traders in Belfast, Dublin, Cork, Sligo, and the towns 
of Ireland. They are the " Society," as Society 
exists in provincialised Ireland. They have the places 
in the sun ; the Episcopalian Protestants are the 
better half of that conservative element which is one- 
fifth of the population, and have more than half the 
places in the Bureaucracy. The Irish Privy Council 



278 MY IRISH YEAR 

consists of 43 Episcopalian Protestants, 10 Catholics, 

9 Presbyterians. As to the Lord Lieutenants or 
Deputy-Lieutenants of the Counties, 8 out of every 

10 are Episcopalians. Why should they entertain 
the thought of a change in the government of Ireland ? 
Thousands of individual Protestants of course are 
very strong nationaUsts, and, now and again, one 
hears the grave voice of a Protestant merchant or 
trader proclaiming that there is a necessity for some 
change in the government of the country, but, gener- 
ally speaking, the Protestant body in Ireland is Con- 
servative because it has something to conserve. 

Walk up or down Molesworth Street in Dublin 
and notice the number of institutions for the ad- 
vancement and the protection of Protestant interests 
in Ireland. There, engraved on plates of brass is 
the testimony to Protestant soHdarity in Ireland. 
The Protestant body is closely held together by free- 
masonry, by Young Men's Christian Associations, by 
the Orange Societies and, above all, by the kindly 
and intelligent interest which members take in each 
other's worldly affairs. In Ireland the Protestants 
are a minority, but they are a compact and well- 
organised minority, and when one Protestant police- 
man is wronged the Irish Executive reels under the 
blows that is showered upon it. If they are sincere, 
the expressions of terror which one hears is incom- 
patible with the Protestant position and the Pro- 
testant organisation. In a self-governing Ireland 
they may expect the position which the Huguenots 
have in present-day France. 

That the Presbyterian farmers of Ulster are hostile 
to the movement for self-government is a bad testi- 



MY IRISH YEAR 279 

monial to the statesmanship of the NationaKst 
leaders. The land struggle should have knit together 
the Presbyterian and the Catholic tenant-farmers. 
There were movements towards an understanding, 
but somehow they lacked the flaming sincerity that 
would have burnt away ancient hates and fears. 
The episode of the land war is now closed. They 
have never acknowledged them, but the benefits 
which the Presbyterian tenant-farmers have derived 
from the travail of Catholic Ireland cannot be 
forgotten. " It was the Home Rule Party which 
elevated the peasants of the four provinces from the 
condition of serfs to the position of men." So an 
eminent Protestant business man, Mr Richard Jones, 
writes in the columns of the Unionist Irish Times ^ 
" Now, mark this striking coincidence," he continues. 
" In proportion as the Home Rule Organisation spread 
in the North of Ireland, so also declined the spirit 
of religious animosity, and outbreaks of faction. 
Men, still differing sharply in politics, and widely 
separated in religion, becoming freed from the perni- 
cious influence and power of class interest, dwelt to- 
gether in peace and friendship. Of all the provinces 
of Ireland, Ulster has profited the greatest by the 
Home Rule movement, owing to the existence of 
her manufacturing industries ; every pound which 
the land settlement has added to the spending capacity 
of her agricultural population has gone to the benefit 
of her local industry. . . . The Nationalist leaders 
have laid upon Ulster a debt of gratitude which Ulster 
men will not be ungenerous enough nor unjust enough 
to repudiate." 

• Letter from Mr Richard Jones, published November 1st, 1911. 



280 MY IRISH YEAR 

Like the Catholic, the Presbyterian peasantry felt 
the oppression of the EpiscopaHan ascendency. 
Thousands of them were forced to leave their farms 
in Antrim and Down and emigrate to the American 
Colonies. Presbyterians and Cathohcs were in the 
ranks of the Northern United Irishmen who took 
the field in 1798. Wolfe Tone, the organiser of the 
United Irish movement wrote this note upon the 
Presbyterians : — " The Dissenters of the North, the 
more especially of the town of Belfast, are, from the 
genius of their religion, and from the superior diffu- 
sion of political information among them, sincere 
and enhghtened Republicans. They had been fore- 
most in pursuit of Parliamentary reform, and I have 
already mentioned the early wisdom and virtue of 
the town of Belfast in proposing emancipation of 
Cathohcs so far back as the year 1773." ^ But 
between the date of Wolfe Tone's entry and the 
outbreak of 1798, the Orange Society was founded. 
Lecky quotes a letter written by a gentleman in 
Omagh after the formation of the Orange Society 
in the district. It shows how the new line of cleavage 
was running counter to the schemes of the United 
Irish party .2 " He mentions that after divine service 
he had been addressing a meeting of nearly 2000 
Presbyterians on the necessity of forming volunteer 
corps in order to resist the French, and also ' the 
Belfast principle.' The strongest spirit of loyalty, 
he says, prevailed among them ; the hatred of Roman 
Catholics is very great, so much so, that should one 
be admitted they never would join with them, as 

^ Autobiography of Wolfe Tone. 

2 " Ireland in the Eighteenth Century," Vol. III. 



MY IRISH YEAR 281 

a spirit of Defenderism and revenge exists in that 
body against the administration. This violent change 
has been wrought within a year — a change fraught 
with the best consequences for our King and Con- 
stitution." It is fair to say that the Orange Society 
seems to have been founded as a check to the Cathohc 
Committees and Defender Societies. But it is 
difficult to apportion blame to Parties in those 
troublous times. The creation of the Orange Societies 
has had grave historical consequences. The Lodges 
were wedges between Catholic and Presbyterians, 
and arks in the alliance between Presbyterians and 
the Episcopalians. The Orange Societies were soon 
adopted by the landowners. It was an effective 
means of dividing tenants. In the manufacturing 
towns they keep Protestant and Catholic employees 
apart, and for that reason it is patronised by 
capitalists.^ 

The Presbyterian farmers, the people of the in- 
dustrial towns and that nexus of population commerce 
and industry — Belfast — constitute what is called the 
" Ulster " opposition. The use of this whole large 
geographical term suggests that a large and im- 
portant Irish province is opposed to the idea of 
self-government. The convenience of localising an 
opposition permits Irish nationalists to let the ex- 
pression pass. But Ulster consists of nine counties — 
Donegal, Londonderry, Antrim, Down, Armagh, 
Tyrone, Monaghan, Fermanagh and Cavan. In the 
nine counties of Ulster, the Home Rule members are 
in a majority of one. There are two counties, Antrim 

' Mr St John Ervine's play " Mixed Marriage " illustrates the use 
that Belfast employers make of sectarian animosity. 



282 MY IRISH YEAR 

and London that vote Unionist ; three counties 
Cavan, Monaghan and Donegal that are soHd for 
Home Rule, four counties, Armagh, Down, Fermanagh 
and Tyrone, that together return seven Unionists and 
six Home Rulers. Sub-Ulster or North-East Ulster 
makes a term that gives a fair idea of the territorial 
opposition of self-government. The clenched fist 
of that opposition is Belfast. 

What temper and what power is behind the clenched 
fist ? I know Belfast and the North of Ireland only 
superficially, so I will let myself quote from an able 
and intimate article signed, " Ulster Imperialist," that 
appeared in the March number of The Irish Review. 
" The chief industries of Belfast, especially the linen, 
ship-building and rope-making industries are depen- 
dent for their existence on their export trade. The 
correspondence, the personal intercourse, the business 
interest of the average Belfast business man, are 
with England, Scotland, the Colonies or foreign 
countries. He has practically no direct communica- 
tion with the rest of Ireland. He knows he can make 
a Hving under existing conditions, and he does not 
want an Irish Parliament." " Ulster Imperialist " 
notes that the manufacturers who depend wholly or 
mainly on the Irish market have more moderate 
opinions. Then there is the religious question. 
There are Hterally thousands of Ulster Unionists 
whose whole pohtical creed is summed up in one 
sentence, " I would be a Home Ruler to-morrow only 
for the Church of Rome." Such a person agrees 
with every suggestion in favour of the widest measure 
of Home Rule, and then closes the discussion by 
saying, " But there would be a permanent majority 



MY IRISH YEAR 283 

of Roman Catholics in Parliament, and I do not 
believe a Roman Catholic's word, even on oath." 

Further, there is a small number of Ulster 
Protestants who quite sincerely believe that they 
would be burnt by an Irish equivalent of the Inquisi- 
tion. " The reason why this little knot of honest 
fanatics have such influence over the rank and file is 
because, speaking broadly, the superior ranks among 
the Belfast workmen, skilled tradesmen, foremen and 
the like, are Protestants, whereas the labourers and 
the unskilled classes are largely Catholic. Conse- 
quently, Home Rule, to, say, a fitter earning high 
wages in an engineering shop, means a scheme whereby 
the unskilled labourers who work in the same shop 
would be placed in a position to dominate over him. 
He reasons from the only CathoUcs he knows to those 
he does not know, and he assumes that the Irish 
CathoHcs throughout the country are all like the 
unskilled labourers of Belfast." Let us note two 
other facts in the Belfast situation. North-East 
Ulster is the only part of Ireland dominated by rich 
men and by titled men. They distrust democracy 
as much as they distrust Irish nationalism. Further, 
as " Ulster Imperialist " points out, there are no 
young men on Sir Edward Carson's side. The leaders 
are the same men who fought the battle in 1893 and 
indeed in 1886. 

Will Belfast always resist self-government for 
Ireland ? A measure promoted by a Conservative 
Government would meet with Uttle opposition. 
The local government act was as revolutionary as 
any measure of self-government is hkely to be, and 
Belfast acquiesced to it because it was promoted by 



284 MY IRISH YEAR 

a Conservative Government. But if the Bill intro- 
duced b}'^ the Liberals goes through, what will happen 
in Belfast and the North-East ? According to 
" Ulster Imperialist," " once everyone was certain 
that a measure of self-government was inevitable, a 
great body of moderate opinion would separate itself 
from the extremists, and (though there would be no 
alliance with the Nationahst Party) would show the 
pubHc that even in Ulster the King's government 
would be carried on. Would the Orange members 
of the North-East boycott the Dublin Parliament ? 
The Protestants of the North and West would not 
be agreeable to such action. 

When one has written so far, one has to write a 
Uttle further. An Irish Parliament would probably 
be elected according to some scheme of proportionate 
representation. Protestants and Presbyterians would 
have due representation. The assembly would divide 
on the agrarian question and on the educational 
question. The conflict would no longer be between 
Protestants and Catholics, Nationalists and Unionists. 
Because this is not perceived, an illusion exists that 
a Catholic majority would persecute a Protestant 
minority in a self-governing Ireland. 



Ill 



A competence and a culture — to create one and 
develop the other is the ambition of every European 
State. But little can be done towards either without 
the discipline that comes from ruling and the sense 
of responsibility that comes from managing one's 



MY IRISH YEAR 285 

own affairs. That has always been a truth for those 
who hold the NationaHst faith. Now more than ever, 
they think, there is a necessity for self-government. 
Every year increases the multitude of officials and 
pensioners : a parasitic Ireland is being imposed upon, 
and fundamental Ireland, and it is only by some 
exercise that Ireland can maintain her vigour and her 
self-respect. Meanwhile what is the great political 
fact ? In Ireland there are three and a quarter 
million people who desire self-government. A Parlia- 
ment with an executive responsible to it — this they 
regard as the symbol and sacrament of Irish nation- 
ality. In the present state of world politics the will 
of this people cannot be gainsaid. It has always been 
conceded that they have a high military courage, 
and that they are one of the intellectual peoples. 
A sociologist who knows his Europe will have another 
word to say about them. They have a religion that 
ensures racial power. The Catholic peoples root 
themselves in the soil and maintain an undiminished 
birth rate. Politicians have a further word to say. 
In the American Republic that is soon to become an 
enormous Pacific Power, they have a dominating influ- 
ence. Behind this people there is a hundred years' 
success, and they have dismantled feudahsm with 
more energy and thoroughness than any other people 
in Europe. . . . But I have divided that which should 
not be divided. In Ireland, Catholic, Protestant 
and Presbyterian are now compounded into a single 
people. A measure of self-government will leave no 
doubt of their community. " A mixture of races," 
says Davis, " is as much needed as a mixture of Pro- 
testants and Catholics. ... If a union of all Irish- 



286 MY IRISH YEAR 

born men ever be accomplished, Ireland will have 
the greatest and most varied materials for an 
illustrious nationahty, and for a tolerant and 
flexible character in literature, manners, religion 
and Hfe of any nation on the earth." 



TURNBULL AND SPEARS, PRINTERS, KDINBURGH 



